Ana Ceballo says in this article that the onset of winter is an opportunity to draw back from gas and get involved with a new energy model that relies on renewables and is based on self-consumption, shared management, cooperation, collaboration and solidarity.
Winter comes, and with it heating for the luckiest. And with heating berets of pollution crowning the cities, and a bite out of our pockets, but this time not so much for electricity, but basically for gas.
Basically due to gas, why we have fallen into the trap of GAS?
Can anyone clarify to us consumers, what these super-fantastic benefits of consuming gas are?
The fact is that from all public and private areas there has been for years active or passive actions to encourage gas consumption, change of boilers, reforms in housing, all with the aim of «getting gas». It would seem that if at home you have no city gas, you are seen as some kind of caveman stuck in the past.
We have suffered years of works to bring the gas to our buildings, and then more works to adapt homes to gas, gas here, gas there…
Oh !, just I pronounced the dreaded word, works! And what then comes, construction companies.
To my knowledge, gas comes mainly from a number of countries that are not precisely characterized for being stable or democratic making our energy dependence also something a little bit «disgusting».
As if that were not enough, contracts, far from fulfilling the requirements by the European Commission, are absolutely opaque, and also because they are paid in advance, companies are forced to try to encourage a policy based on the most is consumed the better it is.
[Pullquote] «There is no security of supply because gas mostly comes from distant countries in conflict and unstable zones » [/ pullquote]
To all this should be added that since complete freedom has been granted to «builders» to build transport and storage infrastructures, without any planning (this rings the bell), again we have a spending in infrastructures well above what is necessary, which results in increasing, of course, the bill. Of whom? Prize won! Consumer´s bill.
By the way!, all this set of trifles, plus some other, makes that at the moment gas accumulates a TOTAL DEBT EXCEEDING 15% of the total turnover. Bingo!
Then of course there is no security of supply because gas mostly comes from distant countries in conflict and unstable zones.
And meanwhile, the accumulated debt now threatens to be worse problem than that of electricity.
If, given the contracting system, it does not encourage energy saving …
So who benefits? Of course consumers and the country in general, does not appear to be the beneficiaries.
What can citizens do then?
[Pullquote] «We consumers, must be the fundamental vector of the transition to the new energy model based on self-consumption, shared management, cooperation, collaboration and solidarity» [/ pullquote]
For we can do it all, starting with changing the attitude, and becoming aware that the development of technology and energies, such as photovoltaic and wind power, enable us to break that blissful dependence on foreign energy, we can be masters of our way to consume, and even to produce our energy. We should understand that these energy sources are not only protagonists of climate change but also of wars, massacres and mass migration.
I do not mind repeating again and again: We consumers, must be the fundamental vector of the transition to the new energy model based on self-consumption, shared management, cooperation, collaboration and solidarity.
The energy sector has given us the most powerful tools of citizen empowerment that we could never dream of.
Friends, we must get involved and get complicated if needed. When we see images of people drowning at sea, let us think we have some responsibility in it. Not only is the debt, the price for continuing funding corrupt governments, but climate change is also a high price. It is about to stand up for the future, open your eyes and really fight, from our consumer habits, for a different reality.
Winter comes, and with it an opportunity!
Ana Isabel Ceballo Sierra
@CeballoSierraA
President of the General Association of Consumers, ASGECO CONFEDERACION#CoopSumidores
