Saturday, September 19, 2009

Conserve Energy: Sounds ridiculous to a North American

Conserve energy? What?

Of course it sounds ridiculous to our ear. We’ve been hearing and living the contrary in our homes, businesses and governments for over 60 years in a row.

“Plug it in, buy this product, support the economy,” are as familiar to our ear as denim is to our ever-expanding blue jeans.

Almost as ridiculous as asking North Americans to reduce their lifestyle by 10 per cent, a task that would be fairly easy for so many, with so many benefits to boot.

But conserve we must.

This from The Suicidal Planet (Ch. 2 - As If There’s No Tomorrow):

“Our excessive fuel consumption is not the only cause for grave concern. There are other alarming effects with the consumption of land, fish stocks, and freshwater also reaching their limits. There is a measure called the “ecological footprint,” which shows the combined impact of consumption of energy and material resources. The application of this measure reveals the extent of our predicament: If everyone on the planet consumed as much as each person in the United States (and Canada, I’m sure), we would need five planets from which to produce the resources and deal with the waste.”


Five planets.

Because we’re eating out own too quickly.

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