Making the Connection Between Your Home and Your Planet

Even though two-thirds of Americans now accept that global warming is a serious issue, the cause hasn't yet hit home for many.

Houses are one of the largest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, but few people connect their home energy use to global warming, according to Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change and a widely recognized expert on public opinion on the subject.

Although global warming has been on the public's radar for nearly 20 years, it's still poorly understood, he said. The dissemination of ideas and products among an entire population is "rarely to never instantaneous," he said.

Instead, it can take years, and the pattern is well established. The initial adopters are the "gadget guys" and trendsetters who relish being ahead of the wave. This group is followed by those who want to know if the product actually works or is sensible. The general public eventually climbs on board in gradually increasing numbers.

The thinking about global warming and energy-efficient buildings is following a similar but unusually attenuated path, in part because the mission of the backers has changed over time. In the aftermath of the oil embargo of 1973, energy use became a major public concern and a small group of architects and home builders began to focus on solar power as a viable alternative for home energy. They designed solar water heaters and adapted ancient building techniques that tap the sun's heat for warmth in winter and keep it out in summer.

In the early 1990s, the same fringe group expanded their areas of concern and called it "green building." They looked at ways to ensure indoor air quality, recycle building materials and reduce construction waste. They favored building materials whose manufacture was environmentally benign.

Fifteen years later, green building is a mainstream idea among home builders, and the public has begun to embrace it, too. But the connection between buildings and global warming is not well known, even within the construction industry.

Making this connection for the public may prove to be especially challenging because it's not a straightforward proposition, Leiserowitz said. Home energy use produces a relatively small amount of greenhouse-gas emissions -- they're byproducts of the fuel oil, wood and natural gas used for home heating, cooking and hot water. The real villain is the source of electricity, and he noted that very few consumers have any idea how their electricity is generated. About half of American households use electricity produced at hugely polluting coal-fired plants. Another 20 percent get it from natural-gas-burning plants, which also pollute but not as egregiously.

Engaging the public to join efforts to reduce global warming also presents challenges not faced by most innovators and those urging change, Leiserowitz said.

Unlike, say, a house design that combines the spareness of modernism with the excess of the Italian rococo -- bizarre but you could at least imagine it -- global warming is a phenomenon that does not tap into personal experience. Moreover, the places where it is most easily and dramatically observed -- polar regions and mountain glaciers -- are remote, while most people's concerns are decidedly local.

"As critters, we are very focused on the environment immediately around us where we live, not on what's halfway around the world," Leiserowitz said.

The biggest problem in bringing the public on board can be the environmental groups themselves, Leiserowitz said. They have often done a poor job of explaining that while the challenges of reducing global warming are daunting, meeting them can bring positive changes.

Instead, many environmentalists have emphasized the magnitude of the problem; the dire consequences of inaction; and lifestyle changes that will help the environment, such as reducing car and air-conditioning use to save energy or not eating beef because ruminant animals have become a major source of methane, the most potent of greenhouse gases.

For the average person, this becomes one long, negative lecture, Leiserowitz said. Most people feel they are being asked to give up comfort and convenience, and they regard this as a loss, he said, adding: "The far right has taken this to logical extremes and suggested that environmentalists want to take you back to the stone age and have us live in caves. Of course this is ridiculous."

Others have suggested that the steps we must take now to avoid global catastrophe will benefit our children and grandchildren, not us. "This is also ridiculous," Leiserowitz said. "The steps we need to take would produce great benefits in the here and now. By phasing out fossil fuels, we'll all get health benefits like cleaner air. If we build communities with much higher densities where schools, work and shopping are within walking distance, we'll be healthier and save money because we won't need as many cars. Retrofitting our homes with energy-saving measures cannot be outsourced and it will create millions of new jobs."

Leiserowitz noted that when most people ponder a future that may differ in many respects and houses that use far less energy, they often overlook an important aspect of the American lifestyle that will still be a part of the picture -- freedom from drudgery in daily life. We'll still have machines to launder clothes, remove dirt from carpets, avoid food spoilage, wash dishes and cook meals.

Katherine Salant can be contacted via her Web site, http://www.katherinesalant.com.

© 2008 Katherine Salant