It’s self-evident, isn’t it?
You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. So why are we doing exactly that? Far from reducing the amount of energy we’re consuming, we’re actually increasing it.
There’s another perversion to the story, too. The more wealthy you are, the more your energy consumption is within your control. You can afford the most well insulated homes. You can afford the highest efficiency appliances. You can afford both the fares and the time to travel by train. You can afford to buy locally produced, high quality products and services – ones like DIB Projects who pay close attention to the sustainability of their work.
Yet it is by far and away the most affluent who are the greatest energy consumers and they’re getting worse, not better.
The fact you’re reading this means that, at the very least, there are some quite reasonable choices you could make. It also means that you are in a position to exert some political influence.
Sure, you are just one person and a state is like a supertanker. One person pushing on the rudder will do nothing. But when it’s 1000, 100,000, the ship will start to turn. When it’s 10,000,000 people pushing, it turns pretty quickly.
It’s long past time. We all need to be pushing now.