An Unperceived Unsustainable Predicament: Zero-Energy to High-Energy Rural Habitation Transitions

Progressive countries like India and China house nearly 1/3rd of total humanity, each with nearly 70% of predominant rural population. While the urban (and industrial) sectors in these countries are primarily responsible for most of the energy consumption (and CO2 emissions) and pollution, the extent of such contributions from rural habitations is unclear. Thus far, rural habitations have adopted climate-responsive building practices relying on local resources (with minimum embodied energy) and energy (for comfort and quality of life). These habitations, many of which can actually be called zero-energy, hold potential answers to enable transition from high-energy urban habitations to zero/low energy habitations. With increasing access to modern amenities (television, mobile phones, internet), rural habitations now aspire for a quality of life (and habitation) akin to urban areas. These aspirations are resulting in transitions from local-resource dependent habitations’ to non-local resource based high-energy urban-style habitations. This paper discusses one such transition-study in the context of a tribal village in West Bengal (India). These transitions are resulting in the habitations becoming increasingly unsuited to the local climatic conditions with increasing discomfort, ill-health, CO2 emissions and environmental disruption. An attempt has also been made to simulate the like consequences of such transitions in India. Preliminary results and discussions of this study have been presented in this paper.