Survey Finds Many Americans Have a Very Poor Understanding of Energy Use and Savings

I think the study is a little misleading, not in content, but in the implied moral. Knowledge levels usually improve following the desire to "do" something, not by wanting to "know" something. We see this with the Prius. A lot of folks will ask about the Prius "problems" with batteries, how to plug it in, etc. Then when the gas prices go up, those old questions disappear as they really consider buying one. Sure a lot of mainstream folks don't know that a CFL light only adds 10 cents to the power bill vs a programmable thermostat saving $10.....until they need to lower their power bill to avoid foreclosure.

 

This should surprise no one!

An interesting note from the study: "for instance, those who identified themselves in the survey as pro-environment tended to have more accurate perceptions"

Well, gee, that is surprising! One might conclude that being "pro-environment" is a function of having more accurate perceptions! No point in getting educated folks, you'll only learn about what you don't want to know!

The more ignorant you are, the more ignorant you are!

 

You can't fix stupid.

Tom

 

Not even with education?

 

You can fix a lack of education or ignorance, but you can't make someone smarter than they are.

Actually, that doesn't really bother me. Obviously people are what they are. If someone is a little slow you can't blame them. What does bother me are people with brains that don't use them. I think the bulk of ignorant people fall into that category. They are ignorant and they don't care. It's their god given right as Americans to be ignorant, and by god they are going to do it. I've heard it referred to as being "aggressively ignorant".

Tom

 

Indifference.

When people have passion, they tend to want to learn and do something about it. When they are indifferent, they shrug their shoulders and say "Meh".

It is easier to not expend energy to learn, thus ignorance is an easier state to maintain than enlightenment.

It is easier to be indifferent when you are ignorant.

 

or is it apathy, i feel that in many cases, people just don't care.if you're well educated, making a boatload of dough, living the 'good life' no reason to make it more difficult?

 

Maybe not always. CFLs are replacing power hungry Incandescent Lights rapidly. Their capital cost is higher and according to the paper, this would not be expected....but it is happening none the less. So somehow, someway, the smarter minority managed to overcome the issues described in the article.

 

If Americans ever had to truly face the consequences of their behavior, they'd get interested in these issues with amazing speed. Unfortunately, our society seems to have been built to prevent this from ever happening. We wage wars on borrowed money and without conscription to make it as easy for people to ignore as possible. We subsidize all the wrong things in the agricultural sector and the energy industry to essentially lobotomize the market forces that require accurate information to function. How can we justify launching an invasion and lowering taxes at the same time? Why does a McDonalds cheeseburger cost less than a locally grown organic tomato?

Economics must agree with thermodynamics or it is useless. Ultimately, we're digging our own graves. Systems so badly out of calibration can only continue so far before they break entirely.

Americans have such a poor understanding of energy use and conservation because we've been raised and conditioned not to understand them, not to value them, not to practice them wisely. I'm sure the bottom line of major shareholders of powerful corporations would suffer if the price of things were adjusted to reflect their true cost in full. Therefore it is unlikely to happen.

 

It's the ignorant and proud of it ones that worry me the most.

 

Personally I strive to be morer ignorant.

By the time my food has to be blended for me? I hope to be oblivious.

I once worked with a guy who would bring frozen dinners in for lunch and "slow cook" them on the low setting in the microwave. We'd go in the lunchroom and he'd have the microwave set at 10% for 40 minutes. His contention was that this was saving energy.

I don't know if this could possibly be true, all I know is that his co-workers threatened to kill him if he didn't stop.

 

Ah, there's that term 'true cost' again. I heard it on the radio the other day, too. Maybe this essential concept is beginning to be understood, and there's hope for humanity yet.

 

Rich is as Rich does.

Seems like most arguments like this propose that the US gits dumb so that we can be as poor as the rest of the world so every thing is fair.

Give us (the USA) a little credit. Maybe there are some cultures that need to get a clue.

 

Energy conservation and sustainable are not going to result in "the US getting as poor as the rest of the world" thank you very much. It has been demonstrated over and over and over again, that energy conservation pays off more than it's cost in nearly every case, even without subsidy.

If I had told you in 1973 when gas was $.30 gallon, that if you spent an additional $.10 per gallon the next ten years to increase efficiencies and breed new technology, and that in the end, your price of energy would be net/net 25% more expensive than when you started? No, the average American would have said no, "I don't want to be "taxed that way"!

Instead, we have paid little or nothing in the intervening 35 years to promote conservation and alternatives and now the price across the board is ~ 10 times what it was in 1973?

The reality is that we can have a perfectly nice lifestyle using considerably less energy than we do now. The hard fact is that we waste a huge amount on stupid inefficiencies, ranging from bad lighting, to over heating/over cooling our building, cars that are poorly designed for the tasks assigned (Hummer anyone?) to tax and transportation policy that is skewed heavily in favor of oil.

The argument by too many is that we would have to go back to the stone age to cut our energy consumption enough to cope with peak oil/global warming. This is demonstrably not true. In my personal case, we live quite well with all the accouterments of 21 century living, but we use net/net in a calendar year ~ 1/4 of the energy as the average American!

So feel free to leave the lights on, and use your old fridge, and drive your SUV as a single occupant to commute, and, and, and, but don't complain that the "poorness" is going to come from any one but yourself. My Prius, solar panels, solar hot water make my life net/net cheaper every day in a relative sense. And I turn my lights and wall warts off!

 

The fact that the larger population did not make the choice so much as the market was changed for them by others was my point. The unaware do have the advantage of being lead by those that are aware. The positive changes of CFC elimination and Coal Plant Scrubbers were not accomplished by the general majority, but by a powerfully influential collection of diverse individuals that knew what and why it had to be done. The same is true in cars and future sustainable technologies. The technology to save energy will be put into everyones hands not by "popular demand" but by the right technologies being fielded by those that know what is needed and how to make it the "best" choice.

 

That is the bottom line.

 

i don't think the majority of americans have learned a thing from the gulf oil spill. nothing has changed in their lives and bp and the government have done a fine job with the disbursants to hide most of it from the general public and media. i'm sure most people thinks it's all cleaned up now.