During the course of a year, the path of the Sun among the stars—the ecliptic—passes through 12 ancientconstellations. Because all but one of these 12 constellations represent living things, human or animal, the Greekscalled them the “circle of Animals”—in ancient Greek, kyklos zodiakos, now shortened to zodiac. The one starpattern in the zodiac that doesn’t represent an animal is Libra, the Scales. However, the Greeks considered the starsof Libra to be both a Scales and the Claws of the Scorpion, which follows Libra in the zodiac, so it’s appropriate toinclude it in the circle as well. 

     The Greeks inherited the 12 constellations of the zodiac, as well as the concept of the zodiac as a singularobject, from the Babylonians. (Ancient Babylonia occupied south-central Mesopotamia on the floodplain betweenthe Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; today, it corresponds to southern Iraq.) The concept of the zodiac was closelyrelated to horoscope astrology—the system of predicting a person’s character and future from where the Sun andplanets were in the zodiac at the time of their birth—a practice which also came to Greece from Babylonia, thoughit was a very late development in Mesopotamia. In fact the earliest known horoscope from Babylonia dates only to 410 BC. But by that time Babylonia had been under the rule of Persian kings for over a century. The ancient Persianswere Sun-worshippers, whereas traditionally the Babylonians had used a lunar rather than a solar calendar. Thus,though it was indeed the Babylonians who conceived of the 12 ancient constellations in the path of the Sun as aunit, which the Greeks then called the zodiac, they did so only as late as the 5th century BC under the influence ofPersian Sun-worship.

     Horoscope astrology as we think of it today developed even later: It didn’t attain its final form and greatpopularity until the 3rd century AD, when the social and political dislocations of the decaying Roman Empire madethe powerless multitudes vulnerable to any superstition that promised knowledge about the insecure future and someillusion of control over it.

     The process for awarding host city honors came under intense scrutiny after Salt Lake City had beenawarded the right to host the 2002 Olympic Games. Soon after the host city had been announced, it wasdiscovered that the organizers had engaged in an elaborate bribery scheme to     31   with IOC(International Olympic Committee) officials. Gifts and other financial considerations were given to thosewho would evaluate and vote on Salt Lake City’s bid. These gifts included medical treatment for relatives,a college scholarship for one member’s son and a land deal in Utah. Even IOC president Juan AntonioSamaranch received two rifles    32   $2,000. Samaranch defended the gift as inconsequential since, aspresident, he was a non-voting member. 

     The subsequent investigation has uncovered inconsistencies in the bids for every Olympics (bothSummer and Winter) since 1988.   33   , the gifts received by IOC members from the JapaneseOrganizing Committee for Nagano’s bid for the 1998 Winter Olympics were described by the investigationcommittee as “astronomical.” Although nothing strictly illegal had been done, the IOC feared thatcorporate sponsors would lose faith in the integrity of the process and that the Olympic brand would betarnished to such an extent   34   advertisers would begin to pull their support. The investigation resulted in the expulsion of 10 IOC members and the sanctioning of another 10.New terms and age limits were established for IOC membership, and 15 former Olympic athletes wereadded to the committee. Stricter rules for future bids were imposed, with   35      imposed on the valueof gifts IOC members could accept from bid cities.

       To cool down urban heat islands, some cities are “lightening” streets.   18   is done by covering black asphalt streets, parking lots, and dark roofs with a more reflective gray coating. These changes can drop urban air temperatures dramatically, especially during the heat of summer. Planting gardens on urban rooftops can also help to cool down the city, too!   19   , a study in Los Angeles, California, calculated that changes like these would be enough to save close to $100 million per year in energy costs!

       Urban building materials are another reason that urban areas trap heat. Many modern building materials are impervious surfaces. This means that water can’t flow through surfaces like a brick or a patch of cement like   20   would through a plant. Without a cycle of flowing and evaporating water, these surfaces have nothing to cool them down.

       Fuel poverty occurs when a household is unable to afford the most basic amount of energy foradequate heating, cooking, lighting, and use of appliances in the home. According to European UniversityInstitute, in 2011, 9.8% of households in the EU27 countries and 15.8% of households in the 12 newmember states could not afford to heat their homes adequately. Thus, fuel poverty is an increasingly seriousproblem across Europe and requires the intervention of policymakers.

       In particular, corrective measures have been implemented which aim to help fuel-poor householdspay their energy bills, and preventive policies have also been introduced, which focus more on improvingresidential energy efficiency. Debates about the effectiveness of these measures have ensued for severalreasons; mainly because energy retrofit renovations have often been undertaken by wealthier households.Thus, despite these measures, given the expected increase in the cost of energy, some could find it difficultor even impossible to satisfy their energy needs. As a prerequisite to discussions about the effectivenessof different measures to fight fuel poverty, debates have often focused on the need to reliably identify fuel-poor households and create a detailed profile of such households. In fact, the multidimensionality of fuelpoverty makes it difficult to achieve this.

       Fuel poverty has traditionally been treated as a monetary poverty problem. At European Union level,there is no common definition or standardized indicator for assessing fuel poverty. While there is a largebody of literature on measuring poverty, consensus has not yet been reached on the related methodologicaland conceptual issues. However, households affected by fuel poverty are not always the same as thoseaffected by monetary problems, even if the two phenomena are inextricably linked.

       In this context, we suggest that a more careful and systematic understanding can be developedthrough a multidimensional approach to the relationship between monetary poverty, residential energyefficiency of buildings, and heating restrictions. Our objective in this paper is not to challenge existingmeasures of fuel poverty, but provide new ways to better identify those who suffer the most from fuelpoverty in order to optimize policy. We argue this is needed to better identify the connection betweenenergy use and well-being and therefore deepen understanding of energy poverty.