The issue
The Passive House approach to construction is an ambitious response to global climate change and energy security issues.
Despite increasing media attention the majority of Canadians are likely unaware of the potential scale and severity of climate change, nor the social implications of energy resource depletion.
Despite years of inaction and disengagement by successive Canadian governments on the issue of climate change protection, many warning voices have been raised, and a few of our writers and broadcasters have tackled the subject in-depth, with a full review of current scientific opinion.
From the introduction to ‘Climate Wars’, his meticulously researched 2009 book on the global security implications of climate change, Canadian geopolitical analyst Gwynne Dyer writes:
“Here are four conclusions I have reached after a year of trailing around the world of climate change… First, this thing is coming at us a lot faster than the publicly acknowledged wisdom has it. When you talk to the people at the sharp end of the climate business, scientists and policy-makers alike, there is an air of suppressed panic in many of the conversations. We are not going to get through this without taking a lot of casualties, if we get through it at all.
Second, all the stuff about changing the light bulbs and driving less, although it is useful for raising consciousness and gives people some sense of control over their fate, is practically irrelevant to the outcome of this crisis. We have to decarbonize our economies wholesale, and if we haven’t reached zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – and, preferably 80% cuts by 2030 – then the second half of this century will not be a time you would choose to live in…
Third, it is unrealistic to believe that we are really going to make those deadlines… To keep the global average temperature low enough to avoid hitting some really ugly feedbacks we need greenhouse gas emissions to be falling by four percent NOW and you just can’t turn the supertanker around that fast. So we are going to need geo-engineering solutions as stopgaps to hold the temperature down while we work at getting our emissions down… we only get one shot at solving this problem, and we will probably fail without geo-engineering.
And fourth, for every degree that the average global temperature rises, so do the mass movements of population, the number of failed and failing states, and very probably the national and international wars….the unknown but predictably terrifying crises that will imperil our children and our grandchildren… are all facets of the same basic truth: as a species we have achieved critical mass”.
Clearly the time has come to change the way we use energy and other resources.
Annual heating/cooling energy represents 75–85% of the total lifecycle environmental impact of a building in Canada, so our singular priority for achieving sustainable buildings must be a dramatic reduction in their energy use. The Passive House approach is the world’s most ambitious, verified and practical way of meeting this goal.
The Passive House Standard gives designers, planners and builders the tools and knowledge to produce buildings which can truly be called sustainable, and which can be affordable to all.
