Europe All the Time, New York When It Needs To
August 17th, 2006
On a recent trip to Europe I was reminded of the fact that Europeans are so much more conservation oriented and energy efficient than Americans. The lights in hotel hallways are off until you walk by the sensor or push a button; they go on for two minutes and then go off again. Motion sensors everywhere that turn lights on in hallways, stairwells and public spaces. In Munich I saw something for the first time: public escalators that don’t move until someone walks onto it and passes the motion detector. All over downtown Munich there were non-moving escalators, waiting.
Then of course are the small cars, the tiny two-seater sedans that even if not electric must get close to 50 miles per gallon. Then of course all the bicycles. In Berlin, and much more so in Munich it seemed like the preferred mode of transportation. At a couple of suburban train stations, I saw literally hundreds of bicycles that had been left by train commuters. [Guess there is also a difference in the level of theft]. Everywhere there were bicycles.
All of this made a real impression on me. It made me again realize how energy indulgent we Americans are. Lights always on, escalators always moving whether they are being used or not, frigid air conditioning that drives people to wear sweaters inside during the summer, and everything big, big, big.
The week after I came back from Europe I took a trip to New York City during a record heat wave. This was the one a couple of weeks ago when, for three days the highs were 95-102 degrees. This was two weeks after another heat wave when overuse of the electric grid had caused a black-out in some areas. To avoid another black out, Mayor Bloomberg launched a major communications effort to ask people to turn off lights, to lower the output of air conditioners and to do what they could to lessen electric use.
Guess what? Everybody seemed to respond. ‘Can do’ New Yorkers rose to the occasion. I remember one day when I went into three different, large office buildings and half of the lobby lights were off in every one. That same day I noticed that some of the track lighting in two different restaurants had been turned off. I was in several different office suites, and all of them had a noticeable number of ceiling lights switched off. So when called upon Americans can act energy intelligent. Granted the actions were to avoid something bad, another black out, but people did seem to get a sense of purpose in these actions; a ‘we’re doing our part’ kind of feeling.
Having just returned from Europe I couldn’t but help see this through that filter. Hey, maybe the most energy indulgent country in the history can change and act with the intelligence of the Europeans. Treat energy as a valuable rather than disposable resource. It is a valuable resource. We have only decades of petroleum left. We need to stretch that timeline as much as we can to buy time to make the discoveries and create the innovative inventions that can move us to no longer need petroleum and to operate on renewable sources of energy. Humanity can have an incredibly bright future, but only if this problem is solved.
There were two ingredients in the New York experience that perhaps Americans need to break their energy habits: fear and hands on, well communicated leadership. The fear of another black out and Mayor Bloomberg’s omnipresent messaging won the day in New York. Americans need to visualize what life would be like with $7 gas and regular black-outs. Truly see that vision and use it as motivation to act differently.
As for the concerned, hands on and visionary leadership, we all look to Washington to hopefully find some. Mobilize the country to win this effort similar to the home front mobilization during WWII. Provide a vision, and therefore create the innovation, similar to the man on the moon effort. To paraphrase a 60s song about alienation: where have you gone John F. Kennedy, our nation casts it leaderless eyes to you.
August 17th, 2006 at 6:26 am
I told you, the leader with the enough guts to really take on this issue has not even been born yet.
August 17th, 2006 at 6:39 am
David,
With baseball’s popularity at an all-time high, and being the in the heart of the season, Joe Dimaggio (sp?) would have been appropo as well…
August 17th, 2006 at 7:14 am
it seems that only in times of crisis or dire need, people here respond. what is the psychology behind europeans which makes them more community and energy conscious? there is something deeper there, something i would imagine has to do with the whole system and philosophy of living. europeans give themselves more time to stop, think and do the right thing. here in NY, everyone’s running around like a chicken without a head, until they get hit by a brick. that’s just the way this place was built and the neurotic energy that it feeds off of. how to change that?
August 17th, 2006 at 8:18 am
Europeans have lots more bad memories than Americans to help them understand the need to do without. No accident that New York can unite. They also now have a bad memory.
August 17th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Last weekend I was driving home from a long weekend in Wisconsin. On my way through the Milwaukee area, I was looking forward to seeing one of the more interesting man-made sites along the highway…a Harley-Davidson dealership with a huge four-story display tower stacked with revved-up machinery. As the father of three kids and an owner of a mini-van, something about it just seems cool! It was about 9:00 pm, and out of the corner of my eye I saw it off in the distance…but something wasn’t right. Isn’t the dealership on the other side of town? As I got closer I was floored. This wasn’t the Harley dealership, it was a Hummer dealership. The sheer volume of gas-guzzling trucks was staggering. I don’t get it. A Hummer truck seems like the poster child for energy over-indulgence. It’s just so over the top. I wonder why people who walk on these lots don’t feel the same way. Maybe they were brainwashed by the Hummer commercial with the kid driving an oversized go-cart with The Who’s “Happy Jack” playing in the background. Hey, I like the song too, but that doesn’t mean I need a monster truck to drive to Chile’s for dinner.
August 17th, 2006 at 8:34 am
George-
Very good point. Pain is hot wired to memory, that is for sure.
David
August 17th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Mike-
I couldn’t agree more. As I wrote in a prior post:
http://www.evolutionshift.com/blog/category/predictions/
Hummer discontinued its largest model a couple of months ago. I made the prediction in the above mentioned post that Hummer would shut down in late 2007. Indications are pointing that way as Hummer dealerships are advertising all kinds of ‘no money down, no interest for 60 months’ deals on TV. It used to be an in demand car.
To me it has always looked like a compensation vehicle for shortcomings in other areas, as it clearly has no practicality or environmental purpose.
David
August 17th, 2006 at 9:35 am
Bravo! America has proven to “be behind” in many areas, i.e., technology, nationalized health care and education, for a long time now. You do a great service to us all suggesting that our government ought to be looking to Europe as an societal example to be followed. I wish those in Washington and all who voted them in, understood that pride is one of the seven dealy sins and that we, Americans, are suffering as a result.
August 17th, 2006 at 11:49 am
I agree that we as Americans definitely have a responsibiity to start conserving in hopes of preserving the future. But the rapidly developing economies of China and India that perhaps pose even greater threats. After decades of poverty and being relegated to third world status, China and India now have booming economies that demand more and more petroleum and the rising standard of living has the people eager to emulate the energy wanton Americans with bigger cars, colder ac in every room and blatant disregard for the future. In all, I believe that only a global conservation as well as innovation effort will help buy us enough time to discover and implement renewable energy sources.
August 18th, 2006 at 1:03 am
High gas prices pretty much explain smaller more fuel efficient cars, a robust and more heavily used mass transit infrastructure and bicycles in Europe. Higher prices encourage people to conserve because it makes conservation more rewarding.
What does electricity cost in Europe? My quick internet search showed electricity prices in Europe to be 50 to 100 percent higher than in the US. Is that true? If so, it probably explains why there is greater effort to conserve electricity in Europe.
A leader asking for cooperation during a crisis or an injection of fear about $7 gas might work for a short period of time, but not in the long run. You want greater conservation in the USA? Raise energy prices.
August 18th, 2006 at 10:49 am
David:
My question to you and everyone else on this thread:
Are you already doing the low cost, easy things to save electricity?
First on this list in my mind is switching from incandescent (traditional) light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs. Compact fluorescents plug into the traditional light bulb socket. There are even solutions for three way bulb sockets (though they are harder to find). I converted my house to 100% compact fluorescent a number of years ago. This solution works whether you own your living space or are renting it. And there is an excellent ROI.
Second on this list is ceiling fans. I now live in an apartment that has a wall mounted air conditioner in the living room (and a broken one in my bedroom). When I was home in the worst of the heat, I would leave the air conditioner on until I went to bed. This apartment happens to have a ceiling fan in my bedroom. I found that I was able to leave the air conditioner off all night even in the worst heat that we have had in Chicago this summer. Only once or twice did I feel too warm in the morning and have to turn the air conditioner back on right away. Of course, I wouldn’t have had this experience if my landlord had not put the ceiling fan in previously. But this solution definitely works for those of you who own your living space.
Sincerely,
Jonathan
August 20th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
I think Extinct Species hit it right on the head. I was thinking about the energy cost comparison between the US and Europe as well. Also thought of the wage comparison. Do they make as much as we do?
Money talks like no other. Want to drive down demand? Raise the cost. It’s as simple as that.
-Grant
TheCornerOfficeBlog.com
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Victoria,
let stay on the subject….social med is a totally different area than energy efficiency…also (I lived in Germany 12 years) biking in a (on avg.) far milder climate is easier…can you imagine bike on a daily basis (even if you live w/in 5miles)to work in Atlanta in the summer??? Come on! Also (as someone else noted) they have far better public trans…and I believe we neeed better, but that does not mean folks will use it…what would be easier (in my opinion) would be to heavily subsidise/give incentives for GM, FORD etc to build more fuel efficient cars and give some more incentives to the buyer after a couple of yrs they will look at anything (car wise) that get less than (let’s say on the concervative side) 25mpg as wasteful and maybe less than 20 mpg for a truck (not the ones that contractors etc use-but the regular “commuter”) as wastefull…what irritates “The livin’HELL” out of me is both the Rep and the Dem. not listening and going for the ABSOLUTES! I love trees etc but I don’t want a 60mpg car that won’t hold ,y wife and 2 kids and 10 days worth of stuff on our way to DISNEY! But a gradual (5-10 yr) mandatory increase in MPG now that should be possible…it is not ridding a bike in 100 degree weather to work (and I can’t I’m in sales wearing a suite…) but a graduall expansion of rail and subway systems that are present so more people can use them cause when the line only goes out about 20 miles from the center of the city (ATL example) I still have to get in the car and drive a minimum of 25 miles in order to get to the first station in order to use it…hell by then I’ll just use the car..and if it is not clean, secure and have trains running at good intervals then again you’ll loose riders—-i.e. CUSTOMER SERVICE meaning you can’t have the government have total controll over it …it will fail!
PS we are not behind in technology we invented the cat converter;) in the 70s; euros did not make them manditory early 90s!!!!! We invented the VCR (we actually just did not use business sense and believe people would want it so we sold it to the Japanese!!!! PCs hello!!!Heh here is a more recent one IPOD….wasn’t that Apple??????????????????????????? I haven’t heard anyone making a made dash to the WalMArt to get a Sony Bean player….MIcrowave????GPS come on let’s not do subliminal Bush/corporate bashing….(that is fine but the subject was energy efficiency and how to get it/what and why are Euros successfull in accomplishing it…it is not extraterrestrial technology that makes the escalators stop and not use energy it is a smiple code that one can write and use to reprogram the system in order to save energy…
September 25th, 2006 at 3:53 am
[…] David Houle von Evolution Shift trägt ebenfalls zwei Artikel bei. In “Europe All the Time, New York When It Needs To†(E) stellt er fest, dass auch Amerikaner bereit sind, Energie zu sparen und sich umweltfreundlich zu verhalten, wenn man ihnen die Notwendigkeit klar macht. „Freedom is just another name for……….Berlin†(E), sein zweiter Beitrag, schildert seine Empfindungen als Amerikaner, der diese geschichtsträchtige Stadt besichtigt. […]
August 8th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
[…] This all came back to me yesterday. I am in Brazil to deliver a speech to the top executives of a company whose annual management meeting theme is “Leading the Futureâ€. When I checked into the upscale, business hotel here in Joinville, in the Santa Catarina state, I went through a sequence that reminded me once again how energy wasteful the U.S. is. The elevator would not operate unless I inserted my room key card into a slot. As an American I thought this was a good security feature. Then, when I got off at my floor the hallway was completely dark. With mild trepidation I stepped out and the lights went on due to a motion sensor. I proceeded to head down a dark corridor and, every 20 feet or so the lights went on as the sensors tracked my progress to my room. This of course is a feature widely in use in Europe, as I have written here. […]