Harvesting Homes For The Long Term Survival Of Our Planet

Project Background & Objectives
Climate change has been a widely discussed topic by Gordon Brown and the UN’s third party report in the past couple of months. A lot of the questions that have been raised have been about how can we stop the climate changing so radically, in such a short space of time?
In my report I will focus on how building eco-friendly homes and using eco-friendly devices will increase the long term survival of our planet. This project will involve looking at how much healthier and cleaner building eco-friendly homes will make the planet. Also I will be looking at devices that can be fixed and stored at and in your home to help save energy etc.
The objectives of this project are to raise awareness of how the public can save and prolong the life of us humans and the planet we live on. The long term objectives are to persuade more of the public to start building eco-friendly homes and to install power saving devices such as solar power panels to their houses.
The Sustainable Technology Issue

Sustainable technologies are technologies that do not eat up natural resources, use less energy and fewer limited resources and they do not directly or indirectly pollute the environment. This kind of technology may have a high purchase cost and maintenance requirements which may deter the general public from investing in sustainable technology.
The sustainable technology issue is that all of the eco-friendly products that are installed use natural resources like the sun light, wind, wave pressure etc to produce energy. All of these will help to stop the burning of fossil fuels which will lower emission gases. The different technologies that are being used to help save the environment and the planet are:
• A solar panel is a device that collects and converts solar energy into electricity or heat. It transfers energy from the sun into electricity which can for example be used by nearby buildings. Solar panels are quite expensive but a lot of people find that in the long run they do actually save money through purchasing the solar panels.
• A mini house turbine is a device that you attach to the side of your house and wire up then when the wind reaches high levels this will produce electricity for the home owner to use. Home wind turbines are quite cheap because they do need replacing after a few years because of wear and tare.
There are many more energy saving devices but these are the most popular with public households all of these use natural resources to help provide power to your home. If you combine the two devices together then the BBC say that you can live for 10-12 months without paying an electricity bill.
Technical Alternatives & Consequences

As with any objectives that are put forward, there will be some sort of alternatives which provides different solutions. Energy as we know is not free and at times it is not always in demand. But with the eco-friendly devices this energy that is not used can be stored for later use. But even to store the energy you will need to buy a storage device because the storage devices that come with the solar panels and wind turbines are not massive and extra storage space will be needed.
As with any proposed ideas, there must be some sort of possible consequence the consequence in this case is the price that you will have to pay to buy the eco-friendly products and to actually maintain them.

Political & Financial Issues

The main reason the Government and the United Nations keep on to us about the state of the planet is because things like the O Zone layer are being worn away from CO2 emissions etc. The UK Government and the UN want to help preserve the wildlife and the welfare of the future human beings because our grand children, great grand children and so on will suffer for what we have been so foolish to put right. They may suffer for the little things we have not done like turning the heat on the washing machine down, buying fuel guzzling 4x4’s and leaving the television on standby and not turning it off. All of these factors will contribute to polluting our world, maybe not in a huge way but if 30 million people leave there televisions on standby then this will cause what maybe a small, minute problem to me and you escalate into a much bigger problem in the future. The UK Government have asked the public for years to change to energy saving light bulbs, turn down the power of their washing machines and travel to work in a shared car.
There are quite a lot of financial problems with buying and using eco-friendly devices for example solar panels can only turn the sun light into electricity when the sun is actually out. So quite a lot of people in the UK only get about 6 months worth of electricity from the sun this means that they still have to pay electricity bills when the electricity from the solar panels run out. But at the same time they have used a natural resource to produce electricity which means they are saving the planet but solar panels don’t come cheap.
Sustainable Development issues from a National or Global perspective

Eco-friendly products are considered as one of the most effective ways to keep bills down low and help save the environment. Not just in the UK, but across the world. In Cyprus Cypriot property developers Leptos Estates have been building houses to develop more energy efficient and kinder to the environment. They have found that under floor heating is around 30% cheaper to run than traditional heating systems, and in the warm Mediterranean climate of Cyprus, effectively heats the largest homes without the need for back-up radiators. There are many different ideas that companies from different parts of the world swear by and I think that we should listen to what people do in the UK, Cyprus and Italy etc to find out how we can save money and energy most effectively without damaging the environment.

Conclusion

To Conclude its clear that eco-friendly products can make a massive difference to the environment and the planet as a whole preserving the world. Even though eco-friendly products do cost quite a lot of money the Government do offer buyers incentives like for example if after 5 years of using solar powered panels the Government will give you back the tax you have paid on the solar panels and the tax you have paid on extra electricity bills. I do believe that you have to compromise space for eco friendly products also a lot of people do believe that it can ruin the appearance of a house. I also think that at the moment the United Kingdom is one of the worst polluting countries in the world and UN believes that if certain countries do not meet up with certain expectations then in the future certain countries would need a whole new planet to cope with their levels of pollution.