If you have ideas to replace “energy efficiency,” I’d love to here them.
We are all struggling to communicate both a positive vision for a clean energy economy and the harsh reality of a Hell and High Water world where don’t act in time. See Part 1, ‘Green’ jobs are out, ‘clean energy’ jobs are in and Part 2, EcoAmerica’s phrase ‘our deteriorating atmosphere’ isn’t going to replace ‘global warming’ “” and that’s a good thing. Dave Roberts has his own take, in a post first published in Grist, which deserves reprinting for the photo alone (from minds-eye via Flickr).
Photo: minds-eye via Flickr
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last week strolling around Paris, eating long meals at cafes, stopping in little shops, wandering through cathedrals, sitting on park benches, and generally enjoying the aesthetic pleasures of the world’s most beautiful day-to-day culture.
So it was a shock to the system to enter the cavernous Palais des Congress, with its blank-faced modernity, and sit in conference rooms listening to functionaries from government and business recite PowerPoint presentations on their five-phase action plans, three-part performance contracts, and seven-stage technology development strategies. It’s great, mind you, to see this kind of work, but the proceedings are so divorced from the city and culture around them, so devoid of poetry or vision or joy. So bloodless.
This, it seems to me, is the great shortcoming in the push for efficiency.
The word itself reeks of sterile technocracy. It envisions communal life as a business process, purely a practical matter, to be stripped of ornamentation, trimmed and tucked, standardized and expedited. It’s no wonder advocates have such a hard time getting it the prominence it deserves on the public agenda, no wonder it hasn’t captured the public imagination.
Several speakers noted the fact in different ways, lamenting that efficiency is “boring,” pleading with the attendees to be “passionate. One, EU parliamentarian Claude Turmes, spoke plaintively of the need to make energy efficiency “sexy.”
But efficiency and sex are antithetical. Sex is voluptuous and beautiful, virile and messy””anything but efficient. If sexiness is not efficient, why should the converse be true?
What’s needed is not just a new term (please lord, not another “climate change” vs. “global warming”). What’s needed is a new vision, a new way of thinking about what efficiency advocates are really after.
Architect William McDonough, who frequently makes a similar point, has suggested “energy effectiveness.” Unless you have 10 minutes for McDonough to explain what that means, though, I doubt it’s going to do much for you; the connotations aren’t much better.
In passing, Turmes himself suggested what struck me as a promising alternative: “resource intelligence.”
I’ll have to think about it more, but at first blush I like it””at least it has a spark of humanity. “Intelligence” carries connotations not only of adeptness but of sophistication and even elegance. After all, there’s something marvelous about how a mind like, say, Einstein’s took what seemed like a jumble of parts and derived compact, holistic explanations out of them. Intelligence doesn’t imply less, like efficiency, but better. And that’s what people want””not less, but better.
Consider McDonough’s frequent example: is a tree “efficient”? No, it grows far more leaves/acorns/branches than it needs and scatters them everywhere. But the tree itself is an intelligent integration of a system into a larger system. There is no waste. When you understand the elegance and intelligence behind the beauty, there’s real resonance, even, dare I say, a kind of passion.
Now, imagine you live in a house that gathers rainwater and captures, cleans, and recycles 100% of the water used in it. In that house, you do not need to use less water; the house’s design provides you with an abundance! The water is not used in a miserly way, but in an intelligent way.
Efficiency implies scrimping and trimming and subjecting every move to a cold cost-benefit analysis. Intelligence, like nature, leaves room for beauty and abundance and progress.
I realize the ship has sailed. I won’t be able to single-handedly engineer a change in usage. But for my part, I’m going to try to talk less about efficiency and more about intelligence, because that’s what this evolution is really about: substituting intelligence for brute force.
Only an economist could wish for Paris to be more efficient. But a Paris that uses its resources more wisely, that allows for guilt-free abundance, is something even a wine-guzzling aesthete like me can support.
– Dave Roberts.
[JR: I'm partial to "energy productivity." Boosting productivity is a key outcome of a systems approach to energy efficiency, as I will show in future posts. EcoAmerica recommends "saving money for a more prosperous future." As always in messaging, I think one key is to be specific. EcoAmerica recommends phrases like "insulating homes and buying cars and appliances that save energy." Suggestions are welcome. ]
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
We tried the positive approach in Canada (good enough, smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me). Got stomped by vested interests. If you can’t beat the Book of Revelations seekers, join em.
I read this on Grist and had some thoughts, but I really like the “productivity” idea.
(I’ve always thought that it was sad that macho energy means lounging around in a bathing suit in a 80 degree house– in winter!!! and cranking up the AC after mowing the lawn in August instead of taking a cold shower, wimpy wimpy wimpy!!!)
After reading my thoughts were:
a) it’s “conservation” not “efficiency” that implies doing without (heat, light etc.)
b) how about something about “energy stretching” or “resource stretching” or spreading something. We need a term which rightly catches by inference (1) getting more for the same and (2) relief rather than contraction/deprivation
I don’t like “[anything] intelligence” and the problem with “[anything} abundance” is it doesn’t tell you how you get there.
My observation is that you get more buy in when you are ‘stopping waste’ compared to making something more ‘efficient’. ‘Efficiency’ smacks of academia and science, which we all know makes the blood boil of those infected with ASS. ‘Waste = bad’ is a simple thing to understand.
One shouldn’t chase one’s tail too much on these topics as denialists will bait you into continuing your behavior – it’s exactly what they want, after all, your not focusing your energy & time on the prize and only chasing your tail.
While I’m not against people trying to “message” our way out of this, I’m skeptical. Cultural changes make what was once boring more of interest, if not interesting.
We will be on the road to success when the things that preserve our society and lives are not considered boring. Avoiding waste was something that was considered common sense for most of our history. We just need to get back there. It’s not a question of making it sexy, but of making common sense be just that.
For intelligent decisions on energy use you need to be informed and aware….
Sustainable Energy
presents the sums for sustainable energy use and supply
The average UK citizen uses 125kWh/d and US one uses 250 KWh/d
(One kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the electrical energy used by leaving a 40-watt bulb on for 24 hours. )
~Heating
20 kWh/d
~General energy audit.
4 kWh/d
~ flying.
35 kWh/d
~Drive less
20 kWh/d
~Change lights to fluorescent or LED.
4 kWh/d
~Unnecessary purchase – packaging.
24 kWh/d
~Eat vegetarian, six days out of seven.
10 kWh/d
How about “energy management”?
How about Negawatts?
Amory Lovins coined it in 1989, and I think it is highly effective, at least when discussing energy efficiency in terms of the electric sector. It has the benefit of getting across the point that energy efficiency can negate the need for additional electricity generation, and also it’s short, catchy and easy to remember.
full disclosure: also, it’s in the title of my thesis so I have a personal interest in its use becoming more widespread. :)
This one line paragraph struck me as being at the core of what you (Roberts) is suggesting:
“Now, imagine you live in a house that gathers rainwater and captures, cleans, and recycles 100% of the water used in it. In that house, you do not need to use less water; the house’s design provides you with an abundance! The water is not used in a miserly way, but in an intelligent way.”
I believe it’s about changing our perspective (or our beliefs) from one of less, to one of abundance. “You get what you think about – whether you want it or not.” (Abraham-Hicks)
I like tax-free income. Income — tax-free!
Faster wealth.
Greater abundance.
Better security.
None of these is “the” message, but I like to see them repeated as often as possible.
Oh yeah, I do like that picture.
OK, so once in a while, throw in “better sex”.
Maybe it’s not words but mindset.
“Efficiency” is a huge art and literary criticism buzzword. So is “economy.” Both of these words describe a highly prized aesthetic. Hemmingway’s prose is extraordinarily efficient. Richard Serra’s sense of economy is undeniable.
This efficient, economical art is the opposite of boring because of its efficiency and economy. What would be great is a popular culture that notices and rewards refinement; purpose; using every single thing the way it wants to be used; trimming fat; the richness that comes when a splurge really is a splurge…
These cultural responses are sexy. Great design aspires to exactly this kind of Sexiness of Purpose. And the words we use to describe these aspirations have value.
Great messaging isn’t about pulling the wool over people’s eyes. It’s about opening people’s eyes.
And yeah. That picture is great.
Petrified Sex!
Looked over her shoulder to see the devastation of Climate Change!
Bullwinkle is on the right track. Buy-in from Joe the Plumber is the objective, which scientific jargon like “energy” and “efficiency” does not help achieve. The right words matter a lot.
I for one am happy that Joe Romm is spending so much of his time and effort on rhetoric, the tools of verbal persuasion. The political arena is where the fight for the planet will take place, and the Green Team is stumbling into battle with their shoelaces tied together by inartful labeling.
The problem is that science snobs insist on accurate terminology, no matter how offputtingly multi-syllabic, e.g. “global climate change” and “renewable energy.” Joe the Plumber couldn’t care less, and he dislikes the pomposity that was so evident at that Paris convention. “Energy efficiency” sounds like eat-your-spinach, more officious meddling from the wonks. “Conservation” sounds like misery.
Joe the Plumber understands smart vs. stupid and clean vs. dirty, so work with that. He wants to be on the side that stands for smart and clean — these are magic words.
“Power” is sexy; “energy” is sort of the opposite. “Power” is virile and positive; “energy” is not. And what is important is the delivery of energy, which is power, if you want to be really technical about it.
Therefore, what about “smart power” instead of “energy efficiency”? (Unless we are talking about special cases like home heating/cooling.)
The problem with “Productivity” “Efficiency” “Economy” and “Management” is that you are not thinking like a marketer, but a business consultant or geek. If you want to usurp a term in common usage, you have to find a term that is MORE appealing to more people than the term in use, not less.
I happen to agree that “intelligence” has more aspirational connotations than any of the analytical terms above. Most people would aspire to be more “intelligent” about something because that makes them feel better about themselves in a way that is more positive than the discipline or denial implied by “economy” and “efficiency,” which generally mean “less” in some way or another. You can argue all day that “doing more with less” leaves you with more in the end, which I fully understand. But the explanation includes “less” and people don’t want to be badgered about doing less or having less or using less. Convince then they are being “intelligent” and they’ll come to the less part on their own.
Excellent point, Rockfish.
It’s really important not to think that you have to talk down to JTP’s level, but to elevate the conversation in a way that brings JTP along for the ride. The word “intelligence” is a great way to do that.
It does seem strange that we have to think of marketing to sell using a resource carefully. The concept of frugality does seem associated with doing without things, and that is perceived of as ‘bad’. I remember the ‘Frugal Gourmet’, who was popular a while back. He argued that his frugality was relative to the use of food and food products – to get the most out of what you buy. This did not mean the same thing as ‘Cheap Gourmet’ or Inexpensive Gourmet’, however. His menus and recipes were not necessarily inexpensive.
To the topic at hand, I think the name “Smart Energy Grid” or “Smart Grid’ goes a long way to selling a modernization of the electric distribution grid. It is a good thing to be smart about how you distribute energy.
How about ‘smart consumption’? We could even promote smart consumption of smart energy. Even coining a term on this blog, it is difficult to spread the word. I wish I knew how to do smart marketing…
The Berkeley Ecology Center crowd has in the past promoted (and probably still is) the “5 Rs”:
Reduce, reuse, recycle, rot and redesign.
My impression is that Joe the Plumber is not the least attracted to slogans that contain words like “smart” or “intelligent” for the simple reason, he is smart enough to know he is dumb.
POWER on the other hand is appealing. I myself admit to a covert fondness for drag car racing.
Vroom Vroooooooommm!
A few more startpoints? Energy Intelligence, Smart Energy [cf. 'smart grid'], Smart Use, Energy Elegance, SuperEfficiency, Maximum Use
I like “win-win energy savings” – save money, save CO2.
I once insulated a house so well on a remodel that if we fired up the wood stove you had to open windows or take clothes off. I was a young newlywed at the time……
Believe me, a well insulated house with good thermal mass is sexy.
You might try “waste elimination.” It’s more scatological than sexy, but as long as people remember it that’s what counts.
I’m really glad you liked my tree hugging photo! Craig ONeal aka mindseye.