<DrumBeat: October 11, 2007 The Oil Drum DrumBeat: October 12, 2007>

368 comments on The Marie Antoinette Syndrome

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garyp on October 11, 2007 - 1:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Cheers Nate !

Sometimes it can feel like throwing out messages in a bottle and getting no reply. Its nice to get a positive response!

And in the vein of solutions rather than just pointing up problems, I'll mention one idea about how a more sustainable lifestyle can be made to look 'better' than the current lifestyle - to the average person.

Many people are saying the route to a solution is for people to accept a lower energy lifestyle, to do less with cars, flying, McMansions etc.

That's great, but that is very much a lifestyle choice. Much of the time the implicit words behind it are "do less of the things you enjoy because its good for the earth", often with a distinctly hippy subtone. We know that doesn't work, we know its not something people will buy or accept - not since the last tie-die shirt was burnt in the 1970s.

Instead I'd suggest losing the green tinge and not mentioning peak oil. Rather its a 'plan', similar to the F-Plan diet for making yourself happier, decluttering your life, removing the hustle and bussle and relaxing, eating organically, not giving a **** what the neighbour's think; and giving yourself a lifestyle where you are relaxed, happy, andwhere you only work 10 months of the year with more time off to enjoy yourself and family.

Sell it as a method, sell it as a plan, sell it with a celeb, sell the sizzle of things people want and as a way to get rid of things they don't. That way people are more likely to give up on the McMansions, the pointless gadgets, the driving everywhere, etc. and take up a lifestyle that is less energy intensive.

If you don't like that idea, fine. However something like it is probably the only way the majority of people will take a blind bit of notice, so you'd better dream up something equally enticing.

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Nate Hagens on October 11, 2007 - 3:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

that was one of my messages at ASPO - we have to make changes for selfish/tribal reasons due to our inherent drive to compete for resources. to tell someone to turn the lights off will only work if they buy into the plan that it improves their own life and well being - otherwise they will agonize over that energy being used to build 5 more feet of cement in China - tragedy of the commons meets jevons paradox.

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Will Stewart on October 11, 2007 - 3:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

From an electricity standpoint, the reference to Chinese cement does not apply. From a petroleum standpoint, spending less money on whimsical energy use always makes sense. National goals such as having the nation less addicted to oil makes as much sense as other national security goals.

People have been changing out incandescent bulbs for CFLs, though doing so doesn't necessary proportionally improve their life.

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xeroid on October 11, 2007 - 4:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I live at a latitude where I need heat and light at the same time - the cheapest way (and simplest by far) to do this is with an incandescent lamp.

Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) aren't always a good idea, it depends how you currently provide heat and electricity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

Xeroid.

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Bob Wallace on October 11, 2007 - 4:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

From your link...

"If incandescent lamps are replaced by CFLs and all other factors are kept constant then the temperature inside any building will reduce. At times when the building requires both heating and lighting, the occupiers might then increase the space heating in order to bring the temperature back to a desired level. Depending on the source of this alternative heat compared to the local source of electricity, this may result in either a small increase or a small decrease in the total cost and environmental impact of changing to CFLs."

So what makes your particular housing situation so unique?

Spending winters at the North Pole and summers at the South?

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Nick Rouse on October 11, 2007 - 8:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Even if you use direct electrical heating you will in practice use less electricity for heating and lighting combined with CFL's. The waste heat from incandescent bulbs emitted near the ceiling and largely staying there is much less efficient at heating the inhabitants, the only thing that really matters, than heat from electrical heaters lower down.

Even in theory, you could only finish up using the same amount of electricity at times when you need both heating and lighting and there can be very few places that do not need lighting without heating at some time. If you are heating your house with a source that is more expensive or polluting that direct electricity, allowing for for all the losses in generation and transmission of electricity, then you should change to electrical heating.

If you require cooling and lighting at the same time then the advantages are multiplied as with incandescents you are using electricity to produce waste heat end then more electricity to get rid of it.

The longer life of CFL's means the overall cost will always be cheaper unless you are foolish enough to heat your house with some means more expensive than electricity when you have this available to use.

As for 'simplest by far' what is complex about changing a light bulb?

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whit on October 12, 2007 - 9:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Okay, let's say I'm in Vermont, with most of the power from Hydro Quebec (flooding First Nations land which incidentally releases a lot of mercury as it's flooded), a substantial chunk from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant (terrible record on basic safety measures), and a small dose of more local hydro and even wind - no coal in the mix. I should heat with "clean" electricity - even through my light bulbs? For minor space heating, sure, but like most people around here I notice that it's still only half the cost to burn oil, which a typical boiler does fairly efficiently. Like many here, I significantly supplement with wood. But Northern New England's likely to stay on oil until the last drop, or radical new tech, whichever comes first. However, at least one neighbor is considering putting a coal stove in his basement.

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musashi on October 11, 2007 - 10:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It is fashionable on this board to deride J6P.

Maybe J6P isn't anywhere as dumb as people here seem to think.

We are caught in a vise with the banking and political elites cheating us on one side and the minority welfare activists demanding ever more entitlements on the other.

Looking at it from J6P's point of view, tactically it makes the most sense to run the whole system into the concrete wall full speed ahead, because we are the ones that have the most useful skills to make something off the wreckage, and because there is no viable solution at the ballot box.

Think about it.

Comparing smaller advanced societies like Denmark, Sweden or Norway with their much more homogeneous demographics to the US is a exercise in futility. The conditions on the ground are what they are and there is no way around them.

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Dryki on October 12, 2007 - 9:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We are caught in a vise with the banking and political elites cheating us on one side and the minority welfare activists demanding ever more entitlements on the other.

Rather, we are caught in a vise with the economic system cheating many at the same time the majority contented class demands ever more entitlements.

The obstacle to a decline protocol is the existing contented class: the greatest generation, the haves, the wealthy. They run the show, not the hordes of welfare queens driving pink Cadillacs. We already have the political solution the dominant class prefers: business as usual.

Activists are next to powerless against the economic machine - at least if they try to work within the system.

cfm in Gray, ME

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step back on October 13, 2007 - 4:53am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yeah! Those damned entitlement parasites.
Why don't they just stay at home and die?
Whoops. They do. In Japan: the model of efficiency.

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368 comments on The Marie Antoinette Syndrome

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