Neurons sometimes fire too fast

So, it’s like this : green seems to be taking off at last. No longer do I feel totally weird about some of the thinking about saving the planet. Just a little bit off mainstream.
Seems as if the message is getting through to nearly everyone. Except the manufacturers of all the packaging that our household dumps into landfill every few weeks. It is our largest waste generator.
We compost, we have started a trial with Woking Council and the Green Cone food digester to see if a hole in the ground in our garden can actually cope with solely food waste. I say food waste, but being all vegetarians, we don’t have chicken carcasses to throw away, only the outer wrapper of the vegetables, and I’m not totally sure that that counts as ‘food waste’ as such. It will be interesting to see how the trial runs, and the results at completion at the end of summer.
I’m convinced, after going the the Grand Designs Live show last week, and having seen some of the associated TV programmes, that there is a huge interest in houses that work well, that cost less to run, that provide a smart ( as in designerly ) environment, and that have style. I am also convinced that the only people lucky enough to get all these are those errant band of self-builders who put their thoughts into practise.
There may be be many reasons for someone to build their own house ( believe me, and easy life is not one of those reasons ) but in the end they build something interesting. I can guarantee that the major builders in the UK don’t even think further than a getting a cookie cutter architect to design a range of boring, pastiche houses. ( OK Architects want to do more, but the companies don’t let them )
I can also guarantee that the self-builders are subject to all of the planning regs and checks, but that the ‘Professional Builders’ are not. I cannot practically see how a W*m*y or B*rr*t house could pass any air tightness tests.
I just don’t see that a carbon neutral house built in the traditional way will be possible. Factories and prefabs are the best way forward, and then what happens to the lounging, bodging building contractors. Where can they stamp there personality by putting walls in the wrong place, using the wrong staircases or wasting time drinking tea ?
No - I want to be proved wrong, but I won’t hold my breath.
The biggest problem in fact is existing housing stock. Glad to see people at Nottingham University running projects on renovating old stock to modern levels. Woking Council are also looking at the same kind of things.
We could save so much energy if we all had decent doors, windows and insulated walls ( let’s assume that insulating lofts is now a given, and hang anyone who still has an uninsulated loft ).
I wonder what we could have done with half of the 50 billion UKP that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling ‘loaned’ to the banks to fix their own greed ? Save three or four power stations ? Be less reliant on imported gas ? Built a future ?
Makes me think. Hope it makes you think too.