I’m theory, yes. But for every person that believes this, there are 10 more who will not budge. “I need to set my air conditioning to 60 degrees to sleep.”
Sure, and that’s why I say over and over again, reducing your personal consumption is a moral issue, and we need a moral/ethical/spiritual movement to reduce consumption. Because lots of people, reasonably, prioritize their comfort over their electric bill or the objectively tiny marginal benefit to the environment that turning off their air conditioner would provide. But if we teach people that unnecessary consumption is morally wrong, and your neighbors start shaming you for keeping your air conditioning at 60, you’re going to start setting it higher.
And that’s the neat thing about Low Tech Magazine. What it promotes is a moral transition, away from complex high resource use technologies and towards older, simpler, people powered or wind powered technologies. Not because those technologies are more efficient, but because they use less fossil fuels and nonrenewable resources, and so are morally superior. And a society that bases its technology use on ethical principles instead of financial efficiency is precisely what solarpunk idealizes.
I wasnt agreeing at first with you but I can agree with you on the moral take of energy consumption. Nevertheless I don’t think it makes any sense to remove constant electricity from the equation. Human development and prosperity is greatly increased by that availability aswell as communication. Let’s say the goal is a post capitalism, non hierarchical decentralized society that outgrows capitalism’s growth needs and achieves post scarcity. In order to for this to be real you need constant access to electricity and communications, otherwise you are isolating people and dampening your efforts towards it. I do think you are right and there needs to be some morality in spending but it should be a moral choice not a matter of not being available
None of this justifies running the aluminium smelter 24/7 rather than redesigning it slightly and running it 20/6. You’re straw manning.
Lowtechmagazine is a meditation on this concept and you are pretending that means anyone thinking this way wants to break into grandma’s home and switch off the ventilator in the middle of the night.
I’m not sure you are straw manning yourself or you have me confused with another comment. I was agreeing with the commenter. Moral consumption of power is a concept I completely accept. But @stabby_cicada did start the argument with this:
The point isn’t that some electricity production is reliable 24/7. The point is, if we want an ethos of reduced consumption, we need to give up the idea that we have the right to power on demand 24-7.
I was answering to that complemented with another comments and agreeing with the whole should use power with a moral attitude. What an aggressive response…
That’s a great way to feel good about yourself, but does literally nothing to solve the problem. Personal usage of a small percentage of the problem, and it’s the most important usage. The government and large companies are the ones who can actually change and should be held accountable.
Blaming personal use is how fossil fuel companies have gotten away with all the pollution that they do.
I’m theory, yes. But for every person that believes this, there are 10 more who will not budge. “I need to set my air conditioning to 60 degrees to sleep.”
Sure, and that’s why I say over and over again, reducing your personal consumption is a moral issue, and we need a moral/ethical/spiritual movement to reduce consumption. Because lots of people, reasonably, prioritize their comfort over their electric bill or the objectively tiny marginal benefit to the environment that turning off their air conditioner would provide. But if we teach people that unnecessary consumption is morally wrong, and your neighbors start shaming you for keeping your air conditioning at 60, you’re going to start setting it higher.
And that’s the neat thing about Low Tech Magazine. What it promotes is a moral transition, away from complex high resource use technologies and towards older, simpler, people powered or wind powered technologies. Not because those technologies are more efficient, but because they use less fossil fuels and nonrenewable resources, and so are morally superior. And a society that bases its technology use on ethical principles instead of financial efficiency is precisely what solarpunk idealizes.
I wasnt agreeing at first with you but I can agree with you on the moral take of energy consumption. Nevertheless I don’t think it makes any sense to remove constant electricity from the equation. Human development and prosperity is greatly increased by that availability aswell as communication. Let’s say the goal is a post capitalism, non hierarchical decentralized society that outgrows capitalism’s growth needs and achieves post scarcity. In order to for this to be real you need constant access to electricity and communications, otherwise you are isolating people and dampening your efforts towards it. I do think you are right and there needs to be some morality in spending but it should be a moral choice not a matter of not being available
None of this justifies running the aluminium smelter 24/7 rather than redesigning it slightly and running it 20/6. You’re straw manning.
Lowtechmagazine is a meditation on this concept and you are pretending that means anyone thinking this way wants to break into grandma’s home and switch off the ventilator in the middle of the night.
I’m not sure you are straw manning yourself or you have me confused with another comment. I was agreeing with the commenter. Moral consumption of power is a concept I completely accept. But @stabby_cicada did start the argument with this:
I was answering to that complemented with another comments and agreeing with the whole should use power with a moral attitude. What an aggressive response…
That’s a great way to feel good about yourself, but does literally nothing to solve the problem. Personal usage of a small percentage of the problem, and it’s the most important usage. The government and large companies are the ones who can actually change and should be held accountable.
Blaming personal use is how fossil fuel companies have gotten away with all the pollution that they do.