Energy conservation doesn’t remedy shortage

By Jeremy Murphy
Daily Bruin Columnist
[email protected]

Summer is heating up, and so is the California Energy
Commission’s “Flex Your Power” campaign. In an
effort to reduce energy consumption, the state has spent the past
two summers bombarding its citizens with advertisements aimed at
promoting conservation. The ads feature good Samaritans sacrificing
a bit of electric power in order to avert rolling blackouts during
these months, the hottest ones of the year.

Sounds great, right? Well, before you get up to dim the lights
and adjust the thermostat to a not-so-comfortable 96 degrees, I
implore you to consider the following questions: What is
conservation, and can it alleviate our energy woes?

The answer to the former question is widely agreed upon.
Conservation asserts that a shortage of goods should be remedied
through a reduction in consumption. The latter question,
unfortunately, inspires a good deal of contention. But as it soon
becomes salient, the correct answer to the second question follows
directly from the answer of the first: Not only is conservation
incapable of improving our energy situation, it is incapable of
improving the situation of anyone, anywhere, at any time.

We, the citizens of California, consume electricity (and consume
it in large quantities) because doing so makes us happy. We crank
our air-conditioners up to full blast because a cool home is more
comfortable than a hot one. We do laundry at peak hours because
it’s more convenient than waiting until midnight.

Therefore, when the state tells us to alter our behavior to
decrease electricity consumption, they are telling us to decrease
our happiness. This brings us to the contradiction at
conservation’s core.

By definition, to “remedy” is to increase
well-being. Thus, the claim that we can remedy our energy crisis by
decreasing our well-being is preposterous. In truth, conservation
doesn’t remedy the situation in the least. It simply
diminishes our standard of living, thereby creating a temporary
solution with a pseudo-surplus of electric power.

Look at it this way: If we could really end the energy shortage
by reducing electricity consumption, then by the same logic, the
people of Ethiopia could eradicate famine by eating less. But the
absurdity of the “Flex Your Power” campaign
doesn’t stop there. In addition to persuading consumers to
partake in irrational behavior, the state of California has begun
using higher energy taxes (or lower energy tax rebates, which is
essentially the same thing) as a means of punishing those consumers
who refuse to comply. This makes the state’s actions more
than illogical; it makes them immoral.

Now that we have disclosed the primary fallacy of conservation,
we can move toward a real solution ““ a solution that does not
force individuals to diminish their consumption. Clearly, for this
to occur, energy production must increase. Conservation, however,
does not attempt to increase our energy supply. Instead, it demands
that we make-do with the little energy we already have.

So why would the state adopt a policy that is obviously
incapable of ending the energy crisis? The answer, I suspect, is as
follows: Conservation was never intended to improve our energy
situation; it was intended to further an environmentalist agenda.
By falsely depicting conservation as a logical alternative to
production, environmentalists have obfuscated the need for creating
additional power generating facilities. If they succeed in stifling
improvements for production, environmentalists may save some weeds,
swamps and endangered bugs, but they won’t save California
from the energy crisis. Many people in the conservationist
movement, however, are willing to tolerate alternative means of
production provided it is accomplished in an
“earth-friendly” manner.

But to the chagrin of consumers, being earth-friendly often
means tearing down productive hydro-electrical and nuclear power
plants, and replacing them with solar panels barely capable of
powering a calculator. In addition, by using government funds to
subsidize such inefficient ventures, conservationists have diverted
enterprising minds from effective endeavors toward projects that
the free market has proven to be of little or no value.
(Ironically, it appears that the same defenders of the earth who so
jealously guard natural resources are more than willing to
carelessly waste our most precious resource of all: the human
mind.)

Contrary to the claims of its proponents, conservation, wich is
inextricably tied to the environmentalist movement, will only
prolong and exacerbate the energy crisis. Through its “Flex
Your Power” campaign, the California Energy Commission has
done no more than echo a regrettably familiar environmentalist
mantra: Shut-down your business, garage your car, turn off your
lights and submit to death by malignant lethargy in the pasty heat
of your un-air-conditioned home.