• grue@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    7 months ago

    No, but looser zoning codes can. We need more multi-family housing and less single-family housing, both because sharing walls between units saves energy on heating and cooling and because walkable dense development saves energy on transportation.

    • lewdian69@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      7 months ago

      Right? If since 1988, 100 companies have been responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions, then housing codes are gonna do fuck all.

      • grue@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        That’s not what I was saying at all.

        What I was saying is that single-family house in a car-dependent neighborhood, even one that’s a net-zero passivehaus, is likely to cause more overall greenhouse gas emissions than an apartment in a walkable city center, even an old, uninsulated one, simply because the former forces the occupants to drive everywhere but the latter doesn’t.

        Sure, we need to regulate industrial emissions at the source instead of transferring blame to consumers, but housing and transportation emissions have nothing to do with that. Increasing energy efficiency of housing really would do a lot to lower emissions, but ending car-dependency of housing would do even more.

        • lewdian69@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          “That’s not what I was saying at all.”

          Oh that’s too bad. Good that both things can be true.

          “Increasing energy efficiency of housing really would do a lot to lower emissions, but ending car-dependency of housing would do even more.”

          And yet still be a drop in the bucket.

          • grue@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            7 months ago

            And yet still be a drop in the bucket.

            That’s not true. Housing and (car) transportation are a large fraction of total greenhouse gas emissions.