Nothing like a two-feet wide shower to get you out quick! Prad and I are discovering the charms of Parisian living in our ‘rue du Bac‘ apartment. Likewise, our kitchen only allows for one person at a time comfortably. This is quite a change from our California sprawl, . . . And made me think of the power of small to restrain one’s behaviors.
As much as we shape our environment, we are also very influenced by our environment. If we want to change, let us modify our living spaces. This way we won’t even have to think so hard about conserving.
La Marguerite 
Reading this reminded me (fondly) of small living spaces in Paris and elsewhere in Europe that I’ve experienced on some trips. Your point, of course, is correct. And, people are just as happy with small showers as with huge ones, especially if they haven’t already gotten used to the huge ones.
The point also reminded me of a great quote from Winston Churchill: “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”
Have fun.
the intimacy of self
when turning around
i set eyes upon you
and find myself in your gaze
contained and safe.
Ah oui, I remember my “chambre de bonne” from my student days. It didn’t even have a shower! I had to heat water in an electric tea kettle and take a “French bath” or shower at my friends’ places…or the public pool. I bet some “poor student” is doing the same today.
And those tiny Parisian elevators! Some of our high BMI Americans wouldn’t even fit in them!
try Japan
I like how in Japan they call an apartment with multiple rooms (as opposed to the all-in-one-room-except-the-bath-and-loo apartments) a “mansion”.
“We live in a mansion, but we’re still green and stuff.” 😀
It would be interesting to dig a study on national per capita square footage, and see if there is any correlation between that and carbon emissions.
That’s a really good research question. I don’t know of any model explaining per capita carbon emissions. That might be really useful in knowing what to focus on to cut them, and in general give much insight in how different economies are organized, together with their energy implications. The more detail the better.
The McKinsey study discusses square footage of the average home or living unit in the U.S. I can’t recall whether they compare that to the amount in other countries. But, they do a projection (based on the official stats and expectations, under a “business-as-usual” scenario. If my memory is correct, the projection is that the average square footage of the avg. home in the U.S. is expected to increase by an amount roughly equivalent to an additional new room, if current trends don’t change.
This of course influences heating and air conditioning energy usage, and energy and materials used in building, and the volume of “stuff” people need to fill all those rooms. It is a fairly big factor.
In any case, there are some great (and worrisome) stats in the McKinsey report on this.
Have fun.
FYI, link to McKinsey Study mentioned by Jeff:
Click to access US_ghg_final_report.pdf
Thanks for your input and the mention of the report, Jeff.
Thanks for the link, Marguerite.
I’m going to look into this tomorrow. It looks very well done.
Meryn, most of the difference in per capita carbon emissions comes from the economy being developed or undeveloped. Poor countries emit either very little (no fossil fuels to burn, little livestock) or huge amounts (deforestation). Developed countries consistently emit a lot more than undeveloped countries with no deforestation.
Between developed countries, the differences are caused by, in order,
– energy generation – countries with a lot of coal-fired generation have higher emissions than those with hydro, nuclear and so on
– mining – countries with a lot of mining have higher emissions than those with less (not much mining in Denmark or Netherlands compared to Australia)
– manufacturing – countries with big manufacturing sectors tend to higher emissions than those with big agricultural or service sectors, thus Germany higher than Bulgaria, etc.
– transport – countries with a high rate of car ownership have higher emissions than those with a lower rate
And that’s about it for the differences. The mining and manufacturing items are important, since lots of minerals and manufactured goods get exported. Thus, Australia’s emissions from coal and iron mining can quite fairly be said to be emissions on behalf of Japan, South Korea, China and so on – since they import and use our stuff. But then their emissions due to manufacturing can be said to be on behalf of Australia, the US and EU, since they get the products.
Sometimes we speak of balance of trade, whether we import more than we export in dollar terms, or vice versa. Nobody has tried to do a Carbon balance of trade, seeing how much countries import or export.
For example, Italy boasts of having no nuclear power, but it happily imports electricity from France, which is 80% nuclear. Likewise, a country could have extremely low per capita carbon dioxide emissions if that country imported all its electricity, manufactured goods, food and so on. But it would have a large Carbon trade deficit.
This is one of the arguments countries like Australia make at things like the Kyoto Treaty negotiations. “Sure, we emit a lot – but would you rather we stopped exporting minerals to you?”
Kyle, I know this, but don’t you think residential square footage (like Marguerite was suggesting) could explain more on top of the factors you just named? There might be other interesting factors like that.
For transport, I’m sure that commute distance will be a huge factor, as well as car mileage.
That’s what I meant with “the more detail, the better”.
You’re right about the limits of national carbon accounting. Ideally, we should measure the carbon contents of national consumption, not national production.
The size of our homes is important, yes; but more important is the design. If I have a large home, it doesn’t have to take a lot of energy once built. I can design it so that each room can be shut off from the other; heating one small room is just like heating one small hut. Same with cooling and lighting. The trouble is that when we built larger homes, we wanted them to be as cheap as smaller homes – so we skimped on the materials, they have terrible insulation and so on.
Large homes impact transportation and so on only inasmuch as they have fewer people. What matters is the people per area. A 200m2 home with 4 people is better than a 100m2 home with 1.
In the end the causes of our carbon emissions are not really a mystery. It’s in the design of our homes, our lifestyle.
I think it’s fine to measure national carbon emissions, and to limit countries on a per capita basis, the same number for the whole world. So Australia would have to reduce its mining, so what? That can’t last forever. Plus if other countries are to reduce their emissions, they’ll have to stop importing coal from us, and do more recycling of the minerals they already have, rather than importing new minerals. So our exports to them would drop anyway.
Regarding size vs design, I totally agree. It may make the impact of extra square footage per capita quite small.
Another factor which I was pointed at by an article on Worldchanging is whether people live in villa’s, houses with shared walls in between, or apartment buildings. This gives quite some extra insulation. It also heavily influences residential density, even with square footage held constant.
For clarification: With square footage, I mean the square footage of homes.
Meryn, Kyle, I think we all agree here. A better indicator is per capita home energy efficiency, of which size of homes is only a component.
On living without regard to hard truths, matters of scale or limits to growth.
How freedom without responsibility destroys life as we know it.
How do rich and famous people, who live large and have huge ecological footprints, as well as corporate ‘citizens’ that cast giant shadows over the Earth today, so easily get away with socially irresponsible behavior which could soon precipitate an ecological catastrophe?
As everyone knows but few openly discuss, wealth and power buy freedom. What is all too obvious but often cloaked in silence is this: A small minority of individuals in the human family with great fortunes and virtually all large corporations exercise their great wealth and power in ways that allow all of these self-proclaimed masters of the universe to live lavishly as well as to willfully refuse assumption of the responsibilities which necessarily come with freedom.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
my move two yrs ago had me reduce square footage dramatically – I went from 2800 square feet, to about 1500 – interestingly since my son left I now have a completely empty room. It feels wasteful. What i adore about the smaller living space is how quick it is to keep it clean – as much as I can admire stunning homes and larger spaces – for their beauty anywho I immediately think – who cleans the darn thing. A yr from now I will have to move again. fiscally this place is too much – I don’t look forward to a move but wonder if I could manage in 800 square feet – did that in 96, storage was my only problem – I actually haven’t thought of how much square footage my storage is. Declaration – reduce what is in storage.
Kudos, Karen! You are ahead of the curve! I don’t know about you, but the amount of stuff that sits in my house, unused, and that I keep, just in case, is astounding. Case in point, I took only one small suitcase with me for this two week trip, and I am able to live very well with just these few things: clothes, two pairs of shoes, toiletries, wallet, and my computer.