24 Comments
Oct 6, 2022Liked by Bill McKibben

If only Carter had picked a better color cardigan... that one just oozed malaise

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Thanks, as always, for this thoughtful piece, Bill.

It baffles me why this is such a tough sell for Americans. The very simple strategy of being more frugal with lighting and heating keeps money in your pocket, improves air quality, preserves night skies, combats climate change, supports American energy independence, and--perhaps most importantly--is an admirable expression of age-old wisdom against being wasteful.

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that seems wise to me!

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What I hear from folks who sell energy efficiency for a living is that comfort sells. This means we shouldn't argue for energy efficiency the way we want to—emphasizing sacrifice for a good cause—we need to argue for it in a way that works. Both climate change and protecting democracy are too important for us to give anything less than our best, most empirically-supported effort to this task.

So let's not talk about efficiency as a form of abnegation. Let's ask our friends if there's a spot in their house that's uncomfortably cold in the winter, or sweltering in the summer. Let's ask if the air in their house is damp and moldy, or if it's so dry they're putting on lotion 5 times a day. And then let's tell them the way to fix those problems is with professional air sealing, insulation, and a new heat pump. If they're nervous it will be too expensive, let's refer them to a company like Sealed that uses an energy-efficiency-as-a-service pricing model. And let's also refer them to Rewiring America's Inflation Reduction Act calculator, and the Weatherization Assistance Program the Department of Energy has had for a long time.

We can do this. We can.

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You and I differ on some aspects of the climate and energy challenge but not on this vital point, Bill. As I wrote earlier this year, conservation (harvesting Amory Lovins' "negawatts") is a no brainer in so many ways that don't come with compromise. And my many recent conversations with Jigar Shah at the Energy Department have helped reinforce that individual, local energy-saving actions can go far beyond the thermostat. He articulated a new form of YES climate activism through which people in thousands of American communities can be be sure local decision makers are aware of the huge batch of financial and other resources unleashed under both the '21 Infrastructure Law and now the IRA. I just wrote up some thoughts on your great post, and included a link to Jigar's key call to action: https://revkin.medium.com/the-c-word-rises-in-climate-and-energy-discourse-yes-conservation-ac713206a6a7

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Great piece, as always, Bill. I feel like I'm seeing a significant uptick in folks sitting in their cars with the engine running. I just saw two in a singe block in my neighborhood. Sometimes its because they are running a heater or an air conditioner. Just as often it's because they are doing something or other on their phone. This tells me that the price of gasoline is still too low. What to do about folks like this who pump pollution into the air in a public parking lot and sometimes outside of their own homes? Sheesh...

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All for showering together :)

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Remember, most of the country is warmer than Maine. The Midwest and South is still running AC. I know it's the same issue, but it's a stretch of the imagination from here.

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Yay! It's good to hear about conservation.

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Many thanks, always, for this newsletter! My husband and I have long been turn-down-the-thermostat-at-night people (especially easy if you have a programmable thermostat): 62 at night, 68 daytime. But my electric coop recently stated in a newsletter that with an electric heat pump, which we have, it is more efficient to leave it at one temp. Is this true? And another heat pump question, if anyone here is knowledgeable, is it possible to convert a heat pump’s backup source (for when temps get below a certain threshold) from LP gas to electric?

I am very concerned that Americans don’t have the fortitude to back off of their carbon-intensive lifestyle.

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"But it will be much easier to build a clean energy world if we’re using less energy to start with." I couldn't agree more, Bill, and thanks for stating this so directly. We do not pay enough attention to this in the movement, and it feels like the clean energy revolution is an illusion if we continue to consume so much energy (let alone all the environmental damage from mining and production, which largely takes place in the Global South). Do you know of any groups or researchers who are doing good work on quantifying/explaining how much we need to build (renewables, EVs) and raising the issue of how much less we will need to build if we also focus on conservation through various means?

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Bill, I am a new subscriber. You have acquired a lot of wisdom over the years and I hope to soak it up. One thing about this newsletter issue. I don't think using less gas hurts Putin. It is like the airlines. We take fewer flights? Well then the airlines shrink the number and raise prices. The issue, as you do say, is monopoly capitalism. So long as we don't attack that effectively, the power of these monopolies will make it virtually impossible for us to effect the kind of change we want to see. That job is ours and is about as difficult as reversing climate change. In any case we have to do it. Thanks!

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With the permitting quid pro quo's already in the Inflation Reduction Act (page 645), what would be the reaction among environmentalists if the US supplanted Saudi production cutbacks with an increase of domestic production? Would an argument that our domestic increase of production would 1. offset the Saudi decrease, 2. stabilize oil prices, 3. punish Russia, 4. help Ukraine, and, 5. is necessary temporarily for a balanced transition away from fossil fuels? Or would environmentalists insist that, going forward, all fossil fuels must remain buried?

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