European houses have had two or three decades of efficiency improvements made to everything, so we don't have the 5kW clothes dryers mentioned above.
If you think about it, there is still plenty of room for optimizing our energy consumption.
The trend seems to be, replace the gasoline car not with a more fuel efficient one but rather with a car weighing almost double because it has to drag along a huge battery. Then replace all copper wires with double the section (copper mining, plastic production, tearing open perfect roads, ...)
Some ideas, not very far fetched I would say, combine a few of these will get us a long way:
Car pooling.
Electric bicycles.
Insulate your house better?
Taking turns with neighbours to do grocery shopping or bringing kids to school.
Try to repair stuff in stead of bying new.
Drying clothes with renewable wind energy. (a hanging rack)
> Electric bicycles
> Insulate your house better?
> Taking turns with neighbours to do grocery shopping or bringing kids to school.
> Try to repair stuff in stead of bying new.
> Drying clothes with renewable wind energy. (a hanging rack)
People do these things anyways with the right incentives, just to save time and money.
But we still need to get off of fossil fuels for transportation and electricity generation if we want to avoid the worst climate change scenarios.
The reality is that people really value convenience, and we have to find sustainable ways of delivering that. That might mean a great electric bus system, EVs, community thrift exchanges, etc
> Electric bicycles
I only ride bicycles for exercise or as an activity but never to go somewhere. I’m no longer 12.
> Insulate your house better?
If the government wants to use my tax dollars for this instead of SNAP/TANF then I’m all for them paying for it but it’s not going to be me paying.
> Taking turns with neighbours to do grocery shopping or bringing kids to school.
See point #1
> Try to repair stuff in stead of bying new.
I do this where possible because I’m cheap but I doubt it is any kind of significant savings of energy.
> Drying clothes with renewable wind energy. (a hanging rack)
Now I’ve got clean clothes covered in dust and pollen. Thanks.
