"It uses too much electricity" has become the new curmudgeon punt. I've begun ignoring it outright. Thank you for spelling out the bigger picture for those who are pondering the silly abuse of environmental concern signaling bandwagon. Maybe someday we can combat actual threats to our environment, probably using AI.
"how can we find ways to make our society even less energy efficient for no benefit to any quality of life except making some company some money. You know, like usual, but let's make it even more on the nose."
Furthermore, Any reduction in the efficiency of electrical systems for (slight) convenience gains seems like a Bad Idea right now. If we were awash in clean energy (and weren't worried about thermal pollution) then ... maybe.
Let me guess, you're the one that decides "frivolous"? I couldn't disagree more. Everyone needs way more energy. Most poverty is energy poverty and trying to reduce demand seems like a fool's errand. Electricity rules, stop pretending like it doesn't. We can figure out how to make more of it without destroying everything
Yes, of course. But parts of the discourse make it sound like we need to reduce our energy usage as some kind of 'moral imperative'. They give the impression that they'd be disappointed if everyone could get everything they wanted with zero cost to the environment.
"Forget Shorter Showers" (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801...) points out that perhaps we've duped to think that energy shortages/waste are _our_ fault, when, in fact, it's industry, large-scale agriculture, and our military that are the biggest abusers. Of course, this isn't an excuse to not be lower impact ourselves (and perhaps not purchasing products that support certain industries), but we can't be fooled into thinking that changing our charging habit is going to save the environment.
> If you notice high energy use while cooking, are you going to start eating more salads instead?
Of course, why wouldn't you? If the assumption isn't that effectively unlimited power is available on demand you adjust use accordingly.
On sunny days with excess power maybe you charge and do laundry. On a stretch of cloudy days you avoid long periods of cooking or using large tools like sellers or air compressors.
Adjusting to our environment rather that chasing convenience is a very reasonable approach to makinh a real dent in reducing our environmental impact.
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