Input, July 3
I’ve been reading a lot of different things these past couple days, including Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Reporter at Large” piece in the new New Yorker, about alternative energy in the town of Samsø, in Denmark. I loved the piece; I think it’s important to hear good news, of which there really is some, about the environment. I put down the magazine feeling more jazzed about the possibility of positive change than I have after reading many more gloomy articles on the same (and blog posts—especially blog posts! Warnings of impending doom + the frenetic pace of web-surfing = instant, complete feeling of anxious impotence, in my experience).
It’s especially instructive the way the people of Samsø were able to think of modifying their town’s energy habits as a challenge, a game, a point of pride and even a way of competing with their neighbors.
I appreciated the part about the 2,000 Watt Society, as well, and as I was thinking about the imaginary case studies in the paper that the researcher gave her, I started trying to imagine what America would look like in a future where we’re all living on a reasonable per-capita allowance of electricity. What I see is some serious steps towards community, and not just a buzzword-y kind of way. We’d be traveling less, by air and also by car within our cities. And it seems to me that everyone’s 2,000-watt ration would go farther if we could lessen replication—how much more efficient would it be, I’m wondering, if only one person in my building of six units cooked for everyone each night, for example? What if those of us who work at home gathered in just one person’s apartment during the day, allowing the others to go unheated? Americans hate this kind of thing, traditionally, I think, but I wonder whether more closeness wouldn’t, in the end, benefit us in ways that go beyond just shrinking our carbon footprints.
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