GOING GREENER

IT SEEMS barely a week goes by these days without a fire engulfing entire towns or floods wiping out villages, roads, properties and businesses.

Parts of Europe recently experienced temperatures so scorching that airport runways, roads and bridges were literally melting because of the heat.

These record temperatures and increasing weather-related catastrophes are proof of an ever-increasing climate change crisis, experts say.

“The likelihood of getting a heatwave is increasing simply because it’s warming,” says Deepti Singh, a climate scientist at Washington State University.

“And that’s happening pretty much anywhere across the globe.”

The only thing that can turn the tide, experts say, is if people all over the world find ways to become less reliant on coal-powered electricity.

And with soaring electricity tariffs and the ever-present threat of load-shedding there’s an extra incentive for South Africans to look for alternatives for their daily electricity supply.

Here’s how you can introduce greener options into your home, what it costs and other need-to-know information.

SOLAR POWER

Solar power systems are devices that convert sunlight into electricity. The sunlight activates the panels, then the cells produce electrical current called direct current (DC) that’s converted to alternating current (AC)