October 12th, 2009 · No Comments

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

I woke up at 5 a.m. on Sunday. Not sure why. The house was quiet and a soundless rain fell outside. I intended to snuggle back into bed for two more hours after checking on the old dog — assuming it was she-who-needs-to-go-out-at-exceedingly-early-hours who woke me.

I decided to check on the teenagers too. And there in the in the “media room” or Texas basement or whatever you call that room over the garage, was a nightmare of electricity consumption. The room was ablaze in light. The TV was blaring (could it be another Law & Order rerun?). The DVR glowed. The 14-year-old asleep on the couch as only someone his age could be. He was sent to his room — where a light also had been conveniently left on.

He couldn’t understand why I was upset, just as I never fully understood the vehemence with which my parents, children of the Depression, saved leftover bits of food in plastic baggies.

Putting on my child psychology hat, I know that it is not the 14-year-old electronic-wonder’s job to sweat these things. He is partaking of the world and building self-identity. He is not mentally oriented to turning things off. He’s more about turning them on. To him, leaving a computer in sleep mode is a good idea, because it’s ready when he returns. When he listens to music on the iPhone, it doesn’t occur to him that there’s a coal plant required for the recharge process.

Unfortunately, a lot of Americans are operating at this level. We really don’t want to think  too hard about rolling back our energy consumption. It’s difficult to figure out (how do I ride my bike to work when I work 25 miles away?)  and it’s sobering — I need to spend my savings on a new energy efficient furnace?

We’re a nation that feels entitled to many treats, spas, vacations, computers, TVs, big cars and the biggest houses. These aren’t bad things, intrinsically, but we’re being asked to rethink them, make our lives more sustainable, cultivate and tend our local gardens, so to speak. There’s work involved here, and yes, self-sacrifice.

Our parents or grandparents who lived through the 1930s learned about conservation when they got a new pair of socks or shoes, or some other supremely practical gift, for their birthday; when they wore a sibling’s hand-me-down dress to the school dance or ate a turkey dinner with all the dressings just once a year, because times were tough.

We need to learn a similar lesson. We know that oil is finite and we must find ways to move away from the polluting gasoline engine. We know that burning coal to make electricity is destroying our atmosphere. We know that fresh water is finite and we can deduce that there will be hard times ahead if we don’t address these issues.

Fortunately, we have many resources at our disposal. Technology is on the brink of creating affordable fuels from sustainable algae. We can still afford to loft giant solar panels in the desert. We can afford the 1-3 percent up-charge in our electricity bill to incorporate green energy over the next decade.

But can we act; can we learn to conserve; can we make bold forward-thinking decisions without feeling the deprivation?

That will require using the executive thinking that we adults are fully endowed with once we graduate from adolescence. Our incentive is to make a better place for those 14-year-olds who will inherit the world. What do we want to leave them?

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media