Thursday, November 29, 2007

Energy savings lost to 'efficiency paradox'

I heard an interesting interview on CBC this morning with Shawn McCarhty, a Global Energy Reporter with the Globe and Mail. The story was called "Energy savings lost to 'efficiency paradox'. The bottom line is this: we've made almost everything more efficient (cars, furances, A/C, etc) but these gains are offset by increased consumption (driving farther, bigger houses, etc...).

I encourage you to have a read, and think about your own consumption. Have you ever consumed more because it didn't use use as much? I'm I'm guilty of that myself.

2 comments:

Rachel said...

I've been reading a lot about the efficiency paradox lately. It's one of the reasons I signed on to do the Riot for Austerity. The Riot is a 90% personal carbon emissions reduction challenge. I've been blogging about my progress. There are a few of us in Ottawa (that I know of) who are doing it. So far I've been trying to really reduce my electricity, water and natural gas usage. Garbage, gasoline, consumer products and food are next.

ecallary said...

Hey! So this comment actually doesn't reply to your posting, however, I wasn't sure how else to reach you. I work for the David Suzuki Foundation and they've just posted a new blog on Docs Talk on Organic Farming and its benefits to the environment and our health. I was just wondering if you'd be willing or able to post a link for it on your blog! I follow your blog and just thought you may be interested in it. The more we can spread the message the better!
if you have anyother questions, please feel free to email me!
Here's the link: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/docs-talk/