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An alternative would be to make energy cheaper, instead of altering behaviours to cope with energy poverty.

jonah 12y ago
Why use more than you need - even if it's free. And besides, even if the energy is cheap or even free, it still takes resources to capture, store, transport, and use energy. So: consume less.
- maxharris 12y ago
  Why use more than you need Need for what? Just bare metabolism/survival? Or a flourishing life, where you're healthy and fully engaged in your work, pastimes and friends, never giving a moment's notice to things that would be terrible if you didn't live in an amazing, technologically advanced society with abundant energy? Things like: - healthy fruits and vegetables in the winter - visiting your family thousands of miles away over the holidays - having clean water, free of naturally occurring bugs such as giardia, cholera, etc. - hospitals with ICUs, surgery rooms, sterilized surgical instruments - computers and the Internet - having a car big enough to pick up your friends so that you can all go on a hike in a park with tall trees - living in a big city so that you can live near work, great food and culture - all those buildings and subways took a vast amount of energy to build, and require a vast amount to keep running - being wealthy enough so that you can pursue an education and career instead of having to work on a farm (or in whatever line of work your parents happened to be in) - having a clean set of clothes every day (if you go back far enough in the energy-impoverished past, most people did not shower every day, and many only had one set of clothes that they had to wear and patch until they fell apart!) -- How many BTUs does it take to do a heart transplant? Think about the energy used by all of the equipment inside the hospital needed for the operation, the energy used to maintain the climate within the building, the energy that the doctors and nurses and administrators use to power their homes and lives, the energy it takes to make the tools that the surgeons use, the energy behind everything the patient takes in during recovery etc. It's a vast amount of energy! Life is motion, and it takes energy to move. Using the past two centuries of progress as a guide, there is no limit to how much life can get better if we use more energy on all of those things that make life possible and worth living. (Many of these uses haven't been invented yet!)
- nmeofthestate 12y ago
  > Why use more than you need - even if it's free Well, if it's free, why not - unless you're driven by a puritan urge to deny yourself. But in fact, living in a huddled hunkered-down style limits your enjoyment of life. I always find that when I'm somewhere comfortably warm I do more and enjoy more than if I'm shuffling about in the cold, and having to stick in one place to keep warm. >So: consume less. Consume more, if it makes your life more enjoyable. Life isn't for scraping by on a pittance until you pop your clogs.

jonah 12y ago

Why use more than you need - even if it's free. And besides, even if the energy is cheap or even free, it still takes resources to capture, store, transport, and use energy. So: consume less.

maxharris 12y ago
Why use more than you need Need for what? Just bare metabolism/survival? Or a flourishing life, where you're healthy and fully engaged in your work, pastimes and friends, never giving a moment's notice to things that would be terrible if you didn't live in an amazing, technologically advanced society with abundant energy? Things like: - healthy fruits and vegetables in the winter - visiting your family thousands of miles away over the holidays - having clean water, free of naturally occurring bugs such as giardia, cholera, etc. - hospitals with ICUs, surgery rooms, sterilized surgical instruments - computers and the Internet - having a car big enough to pick up your friends so that you can all go on a hike in a park with tall trees - living in a big city so that you can live near work, great food and culture - all those buildings and subways took a vast amount of energy to build, and require a vast amount to keep running - being wealthy enough so that you can pursue an education and career instead of having to work on a farm (or in whatever line of work your parents happened to be in) - having a clean set of clothes every day (if you go back far enough in the energy-impoverished past, most people did not shower every day, and many only had one set of clothes that they had to wear and patch until they fell apart!) -- How many BTUs does it take to do a heart transplant? Think about the energy used by all of the equipment inside the hospital needed for the operation, the energy used to maintain the climate within the building, the energy that the doctors and nurses and administrators use to power their homes and lives, the energy it takes to make the tools that the surgeons use, the energy behind everything the patient takes in during recovery etc. It's a vast amount of energy! Life is motion, and it takes energy to move. Using the past two centuries of progress as a guide, there is no limit to how much life can get better if we use more energy on all of those things that make life possible and worth living. (Many of these uses haven't been invented yet!)
nmeofthestate 12y ago
> Why use more than you need - even if it's free Well, if it's free, why not - unless you're driven by a puritan urge to deny yourself. But in fact, living in a huddled hunkered-down style limits your enjoyment of life. I always find that when I'm somewhere comfortably warm I do more and enjoy more than if I'm shuffling about in the cold, and having to stick in one place to keep warm. >So: consume less. Consume more, if it makes your life more enjoyable. Life isn't for scraping by on a pittance until you pop your clogs.