In Zurich, the Greens are taking climate extremism to the extreme. Dirt cheap housing serves as an incentive for a CO2 monitoring system
The city of Zurich owns a 6,000 square meter site right next to the main train station, which is used as a bus station and car park.
This is one of the last undeveloped areas in the city center.
A special idea for this area is now being launched by the left-green side: Like that daily scoreboard reported on the front page, the green municipal councilor Dominik Waser wants to submit an application, which demands that a housing cooperative be built on the site.
The 500 residents are supposed to pay dirt cheap rent and in return have to continue to radically reduce their CO2 emissions, monitor them via smartphone app.
The idea is marketed as a beacon on the way to reducing the city of Zurich’s CO2 emissions to net zero in 2040 – a goal that the city’s voters have roughly agreed to.
In concrete terms, an acceptable CO2 budget in this respect would consist, for example, of 2000 liters of drinking water, 1000 kilowatt hours of electricity, 50 kilograms of vegan food, 2000 kilometers on the train, 40 liters of milk, 18 square meters of living space, 10 kilograms of meat and 20 hours of internet use.
The transparent small remaining goods can either be taken on the train (a good 6,000 kilometers), flown by plane (700 kilometers) or eaten in the form of a good 7 kilos of beef.
Quite apart from the difficult enforcement, even via surveillance app: there may be probably 500 freaks to whom a life like that in the GDR seems attractive. For the vast majority, even in the city of Zurich, the prospect of only being able to use the Internet for a good half hour a day is not very appealing.
And only to take a long-distance trip by plane every 20 years.
And having to vegetate on 18 square meters.
Incidentally, the scenario shows how unrealistic net zero is by 2040: if the cooperative project is to be implemented, it will take at least five years for the “GDR district” to be built.
And if it is realized around the year 2030, only a good 0.1 percent of Zurich’s city population will live in net zero conditions – and will serve as a deterrent to the world.