Everyone must do their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently insisted. Concretely, what can we do at home? Interview with ecologist Emmanuel Cosgrove, general manager of Écohabitation and senior LEED Canada for homes evaluator.
Posted at 4:00 p.m.
Could we have some leads to follow, which would allow us to have a real impact?
Earth Day is like the New Year, it’s a time to make resolutions. In the home, we change our shower head for a WaterSense-approved low-flow shower head. I’ve been talking about it for 25 years! This does not change the comfort of our shower. But a shower head at 5.7 L per minute often cuts our hot water consumption in half and perhaps 10% of our annual energy. It’s a little thing at $35, sold at the hardware store. It’s a two-hour project, and welcome the savings. It’s very realistic. If everyone in Quebec did it, there would be a big dam in the North that would be freed up for electric transmission, for example. At 3% of the population, that doesn’t mean much. But at 40, 50, 70%, it’s a bit like getting vaccinated. There has been a monumental collective effort during the pandemic. There, we need a collective effort to go and buy your shower head once and for all.
Are we powerless in the face of climate change?
Exactly. It sounds so depressing, then futile, but no. There are very simple things you can do, such as registering for the winter credit, adopting Hydro-Québec’s Flex D rate. A good part of the population is eligible, they just don’t know about it. It’s another Earth Day resolution, to go online to check your tariff eligibility, which makes us think in the winter, not to do your laundry at 7 a.m. in the morning or 7 a.m. at night, when everyone consumes electricity. If you consume off-peak, you can receive a refund.
How is this good for the climate in Quebec, since the electricity we consume does not have a major impact on greenhouse gases?
In winter, during peak times, when everyone is getting ready in the morning or arriving in the evening, lots of fossil fuel generators start up. Large institutional buildings like hospitals have large diesel or gas generators. Our electricity, at these specific times, when it is very cold in the winter, generates a lot of greenhouse gases. That’s a shame. If our generators in Quebec are not enough, Hydro must buy blocks of electricity from our neighbors at high prices. We are losing as a society. It’s good for Hydro-Québec not to consume at peak times, but it’s also very environmentally friendly, precisely, not to consume excessive electricity in winter, in the morning from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and in the evening, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., when it is -15℃ and below.