The Councils should really look at extensive tree planting programs on street verges to minimise the heat island effect. Those streets in the video have plenty of room to plant trees. Then encourage homeowners to plant their own and educating people on the benefits of doing so. Then ban dark roofs for new developments and encourage existing homes to have their roofs repainted to lighter colours. South East Queensland developments are much better in this regard, most of the new housing estates are designed to have trees planted on verges and most people opt for lighter coloured roofs.

I mean, if you want sustainability, we should probably stop building low density suburbs altogether, but certainly we can't do much worse than what is being built now.

Some way to incentivise solar / other efficiency options on rental properties would help a lot too. Over the past decade I lived in two houses with no insulation and needed a heap of AC to keep them livable. Insulation / solar would have paid for themselves twice over in that period but since I was on 12 month rolling leases, I had no incentive to pay thousands to improve someone else's asset that I could be kicked out of years before it broke even and the landlords had no incentive either since they're not the one paying the electricity bill.

Being a resident of Western Sydney, I find the discussion really very relevant. Thanks Sam. But at the same time, some questions sparked in my mind: (1) in 2008/9 when I used to study Masters, we are taught that Australian suburbs are great example of unsustainable urban planning and came to know about the compact township (e.g. more greenery, less car dependency etc). I am curious why this is still a critical topic in Australia. Why are the urban planning/develop control policies not updated? Who will change the suburb living mindset of the Australians? (2) We know greenery, i,e. tree canopy cover is important protection from heat waves but where the new suburbs should get that tree canopy cover in situ? Either the suburbs need to adopt planting mature trees (like Singapore) or plant fast growing trees. Any thoughts how the green covers remain green under drought conditions? (3) Does everyone in Western Sydney got access to greenery equitably both in quantity and quality?

Why don't cities (or even individuals) build cooling towers aka wind catchers? You could reduce your electricity consumption for a/c. Put them in homes, schools or other even in community buildings for people to cool off if the grid goes down. Look into ancient windcatcher cooling technology. Also, there is the Persian ice house, or how to make ice in the desert

Where is my solar panels bro?

The houses in those hoods have not planted any trees. Just ugly lawns. You only have yourselves to blame.

@SamOnTheBike

4 ай бұрын

When society treats housing as an investment first and home second, trees are just another liability :(

Australian urban development is incredibly bad and stupid on this front. Dark roof mc mansion style sprawling suburbs dominated by car culture, roads and parking areas is just so crazy. It is a ridiculous and pretty recent cultural phenomena we need to grow up from. The potential for widespread urban solar and powering of transport is undeveloped and ignored, even with the biggest domestic solar roof uptake