[MCN] Real estate & climate: An un-extreme home makeover?

[Lance Olsen]

Washington Post: D.C. couple on a tight budget 
tries for 'net-zero' power on fixer-upper home.  
Their do-it-yourself approach shows you don't 
have to be rich to harness the benefits of 
renewable energy.
Christine MacDonald 5:00 AM ET

http://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/dc-couple-on-a-tight-budget-tries-for-net-zero-power-on-fixer-upper-home/2015/07/15/93a9e6d8-0972-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html?hpid=z13

"Instead of replacing big-ticket items such as 
the aging furnace and boiler (both of which still 
have a few years of service left in them), they 
slashed their energy usage in half with less than 
$500 in insulation, new lighting and other 
equipment available at the average hardware store 
or online.

"Updates alone made it possible to run their 
entire 952-square-foot, two-bedroom home for 
several months of the year without exceeding the 
amount of energy produced by the solar array they 
had installed on their rooftop. Their utility 
bills have plummeted."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/dc-couple-on-a-tight-budget-tries-for-net-zero-power-on-fixer-upper-home/2015/07/15/93a9e6d8-0972-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html?hpid=z13
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"Conservationists must therefore assess both 
current and future distributions of species."

"One critical question is whether models Š can Š 
provide robust predictions of future 
distributions under climate change."

Miguel B. Araújo and Carsten Rahbek.
"How Does Climate Change Affect Biodiversity?"
Science, Vol. 313, September 8, 2006
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A surprising result is the high proportion of 
species responding to recent, relatively mild 
climate change (global average warming of 0.6 C)."

Camille Parmesan. "Ecological and Evolutionary 
Responses to Recent Climate Change." Annual 
Review of Ecol. Evol. & Systematics  2006. 
37:637-69

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"  Š  analysis suggests that despite high-level 
statements to the contrary, there is now little 
to no chance of maintaining the global mean 
surface temperature at or below 2C. Moreover, the 
impacts associated with 2C have been revised 
upwards, sufficiently so that 2C now more 
appropriately represents the threshold between 
'dangerous' and 'extremely dangerous' climate 
change."

Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows. Beyond 'dangerous' 
climate change: emission scenarios for a new 
world. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal 
Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering 
Sciences (2011) 369, 20-44 
doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0290
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