When A Storm Comes: British Homes & The Economy
Handling Storms
Anyone who has lived in the Isles of Scotland, we're talking St. Kilda here, will know what a storm is. Those hardy folk got hunkered down.
I've lived there. For a few weeks. But not like the locals.
They survived for hundreds, possibly thousands of years by doing what humans do well. Harvesting from abundant local produce.
The isolated community, beaten by Atlantic storms from September to March had the benefit of a natural bay formed from the caldera (bowl) of a long dead volcano that collapsed in the leeward side, created a bay of plenty.
Although the strong, oceanic winds prevent almost any crops or trees growing, and fishing in the sea became treacherous after the end of autumn, they lived there.
The sea cliffs of the island are extraordinary. They are the home to thousands of sea birds. And the islanders became adept at harvesting the eggs of the birds.
Their cliff climbing skills where legendary. Islanders, even developed prehensile toes that in modern terms would look a bit unusual - you might call them now, hobbits.
Industrial lead in sea bird carcasses ended the St Kilda story.
We Are Hobbits
You might not know it. But British people are pretty hobbity. We love our little caves.
And when our caves are under threat we return to our instincts. We hunker down.
Are we hunkering in the right way? We're covering our heads and ignoring what's going on.
We need to take action.
Our homes leak heat. And get too hot.
Our homes need insulating against the elements. Which is a gas. Talking of which. Let's talk about being a bit nationalist, populist and protectionist.
Right now, each and every home in the UK which uses gas for heating, allows itself to be giving it's tax money away for gas subsidies, provides bonuses for energy companies with foreign owners and shareholders, and drives income we could be investing in our local producers away.
Who are our local producers?
The Air, The Earth, The Sun - It's British
Air source heat pumps use local air, you can call it British, or, just yours, into energy for your home.
Ground source heat pumps take British soil, for energy. And wind turbines, solar - well you get the picture.
But this isn't the only local energy we have access to.
We have materials too.
Insulating: Bio Materials Are Free
They can be free. From carbon.
The, local, in your county, farmers could benefit from growing hemp. Hemp products don't just extract carbon, they sequester it - i.e remove it from the air.
Farmers straw waste could be bio materials added to insulation products.
All of these products could be being made, and delivered locally. But in fact already are.
Now.
Matt Milloy
The Cost Of Living - An Antidote
With current predictions, your average carton of milk, loaf of bread and slice of cheese (used as ONS markers of inflation) will increase in cost during the forecast trade wars.
And your home, which you need energy to heat and cool, is already getting tariff price rises, right now.
So if you think, whilst the rest of the world fights or "dukes it out" over price rises we have no control over, you could be living in a safe, warmer (or cooler) hobbit cave. Protected from the storm by locally produced solutions.
You might ask yourself.
What's holding me back?
What can I do to stop myself drowning in debt as energy prices sky rocket.
Resourcing our needs from local providers can insulate our home grown industries from the growing chance of recession, drive down prices for UK products and increase our manufacturing bases.
Home Grown Talent
There are surmountable barriers to accessing more home grown solutions for our energy crisis.
We saw already this year the UK innovation is alive and well.
The promise of improvements to the process of planning, product validation and rumours of more streamlined testing procedures for UK products, could be a reality as we face backlogs of supply, and increasing costs of foreign materials and products.
As importantly. Global news chaos has quietly shrouded good news about solar adoption in the UK, growing heat pump sales and rising standards of rental property performance soon to be mandated.
The future might feel a bit bleak if you're a penguin slapped with a tariff, but in the UK, we have resources and the will to weather this storm.
And energy use, might be a low hanging fruit to help us avoid being sucked into trade war collateral damage.
But Levis might be off the shopping list.