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Roger's Home Journal
Roger's Home JournalFinding solutions for the energy crisis
By Roger Faris
Feb 08, 2001 -- It seems that the famously harsh laws of supply and demand have caught up with us and we must now deal with sky-high energy prices. We've been irrationally exuberant in our use of limited energy resources, and are about to run up a large debt in order to pay the piper.We, as a society, need to change our ways--immediately. Our best hope may be to hire a societal transformation specialist. Someone with great wisdom, unique talents, imagination, and humility. This person should have a background in applied social psychology and hold a PhD. I recommend myself for the job. I'm full of great ideas, and have a Post-hole Digger out in my garage. If my research is adequately funded, and my recommendations promptly implemented, the crisis will be resolved with little disruption or suffering.
Taking up this challenge will mean a tremendous amount of mental work, but with your promise of handsome financial compensation and universal gratitude, I'm willing to gear up and then buckle down. While the rest of you go about your daily lives, I'll just sort everything out. Then, after a well-deserved vacation, I might be persuaded to tackle and subdue our transportation mess. We'll just have to see how I'm feeling.
The tools for this work are known to anyone who has ever attempted to move an ass along a difficult path. Both the carrot and the stick can motivate individual asses, or entire societies of asses, and alter their stubborn behavior. Carrots are generally employed as a potential reward, and are dangled out in front of the nose. Sticks are used as an unpleasant instrument of punishment. They're applied forcefully from the rear. You may be reassured to know that I have a philosophical preference for carrots.
One of our troublesome energy problems is that too many people use power at the same time of day. These pesky peak-load periods have forced some utility companies to pay exorbitant rates to electrical power producers who charge whatever the "free market" will bear. It shouldn't be too difficult to find ways to shift some electrical use to later in the evening. My cousins Jim and Barbara Guignard begin supper sometime between eleven p.m. and midnight. We might hold them up as models of good citizenship, and stage a prime-time television event to award them lifetime supplies of arugula and Scuppernong wine.
The other big cause of our crisis is the fact that most of us consume an unreasonable amount of every sort of energy during the day, night, and throughout the calendar year. To greater or lesser degrees we are energy hogs, who don't really deserve to be served any delicious carrots. In spite of that, I'll come up with tasty temptations which lead society away from the cliff's edge. It's well known that rewards are more effective than punishment in changing behavior. Remember the story about the sun and wind competing to get that guy to remove his coat? So I'll come up with great rewards, dangle them in front of our collective noses, and lead us down a primrose path. At the end we'll arrive together at a special place. I won't have to say that I never promised you a rose garden, because I do promise you a rose garden. Just send money, and I'll get started right away.
Roger Faris is the director of the Well Home Program at the Phinney Neighborhood Association. The program provides advice, encouragement, tools and classes for home improvement and repair. Call (206) 789-4993 for information. For the Earthquake Home Retrofit Program, call (206) 382-2159.
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| lauren | Mar 11, 2003 | loo-y-ville | in skool |
| i dont need this i want solutions to the energy crises!and effects!thats frum muh frend catherine! | |||
| G-money | Jun 01, 2003 | Ghetto | Pimp/doctor |
| Lauren be trippn'. I say we all hit er' so hard her mama bleeds | |||
