Life: Powered - Energy Poverty
Energy Poverty
Texas Public Policy Foundation
What to Know: High energy prices in Great Britain – due to the nation’s energy policies – has resulted in widespread “energy poverty,” with families unable to afford to heat or cool their homes.
“Ofgem’s report also found that one in five (19.4 percent) customers living in private rented housing are in fuel poverty, higher than any other type of households and almost twice the overall average,” the U.K. Sun reports. “Dermot Nolan, chief executive at Ofgem, said: ‘We have witnessed many positive developments in energy over the last year, but the market is still not delivering good outcomes for all, especially the vulnerable.’”
The TPPF Take: Energy poverty is created by short-sighted government policies, such as renewable mandates, that drive up energy prices and disproportionately affect the poor.
“Energy poverty shortens life spans and drastically increases the burdens on families, and particularly women,” says TPPF’s Cutter Gonzalez. “Governments shouldn’t make life harder by making energy – and everything produced with energy – more expensive.”
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Life: Powered – Energy Poverty
September 28, 2018
Even today, as we take our microwave ovens, central heaters and air conditions and electric cooktops for granted, many in the world are still burning biomass – wood and dung – to heat their homes and cook their food. Poor ventilation leads to the same health problems that plagued most of us for centuries. According to the World Health Organization, each year “over 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels.”
Imagine life, unpowered. Modern life, beyond modern conveniences, is powered by the fossil fuels, and also increasingly by nuclear and renewable energy sources, that human ingenuity has made so abundant and inexpensive.
There’s a term for life: unpowered. It’s “energy poverty,” and it shortens life spans and drastically increases the burdens on families, and particularly women. We know that women are 50 percent of the world population, but they are 70 percent of those struggling in extreme poverty, and energy poverty is a key barrier to rising above that.