{"id":7325,"date":"2012-05-30T15:44:27","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T20:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=7325"},"modified":"2012-05-30T15:44:27","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T20:44:27","slug":"how-to-encourage-us-to-conserve-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2012\/05\/30\/how-to-encourage-us-to-conserve-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"How to encourage us to conserve energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Nadine Lymn, ESA director of public affairs<\/p>\n

Many of us recognize that a large part of the solution to environmental problems lies in getting people to change their behavior.\u00a0 Unfortunately, altering the habits of the human animal can be especially challenging\u2014we are intelligent but we can also be irrational and our age-old tendency to focus on immediate needs frequently overrides our ability to think, plan and act longer-term.<\/p>\n

That topic was addressed during a briefing co-sponsored last week by Discover Magazine<\/em> and the National Science Foundation<\/a>.\u00a0 The ninth part of a briefing series on the science and engineering needed to meet the energy goals of the United States, the May 23 briefing focused on the psychology of the energy choices we make.<\/p>\n

Since human behavior causes environmental and economic problems, it stands to reason that changes in human behavior are needed to address them, said Elke Weber, one of the speakers at the briefing.\u00a0 Weber is director of Columbia University\u2019s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions<\/a>, one of NSF\u2019s Decision Research Centers that focus on better understanding how we make decisions, particularly about long-term environmental risks. \u00a0Weber\u2019s work includes looking at obstacles that prevent people from doing things that would lead to energy conservation.\u00a0 In spite of the demonstrated personal cost savings of adopting energy-efficient technology, we don\u2019t fully take advantage of them.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 According to Weber, we may be fearful of new technology or perceive that our energy savings will be too small.\u00a0 And, we tend to heavily discount future savings, especially when they require an initial large, upfront cost.<\/p>\n

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Elke Weber. Photo credit: Columbia Unversity<\/p><\/div>\n

Weber explained that while our short-term goals are automatically activated, getting our long-term goals activated is challenging and requires paying attention to social, cultural and other contexts.\u00a0 For example, she said, labels matter.\u00a0 Calling something a carbon \u201ctax\u201d has a negative connotation for many people.\u00a0 Calling that same thing a carbon \u201coffset\u201d is a more positive label to which most people respond to more favorably.\u00a0 The setting in which people make their choices are also influential.\u00a0 Whether people are making energy-provider choices alone at home or in a community meeting can make a big difference.<\/p>\n

A member of the audience picked up on Weber\u2019s cultural reference, noting that social norms among different groups may be wasting energy, yet be difficult to change.\u00a0 For example, law offices may intentionally leave the lights burning at night to give the appearance that someone is there working\u2014even if no one is.\u00a0 Weber\u2019s response:\u00a0 devise substitutions that will work for a particular group that are less wasteful but still achieve the community\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

Weber offered an interesting possibility for the future.\u00a0 She said that perhaps one day, a large energy company might provide customers with a service, such as refrigeration.\u00a0 That is, the company would supply the energy-efficient product, replacing it as needed, and consumers would pay for the service, better enabling the company to manage the service during peak energy periods.<\/p>\n

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By Nadine Lymn, ESA director of public affairs Many of us recognize that a large part of the solution to environmental problems lies in getting people to change their behavior.\u00a0 Unfortunately, altering the habits of the human animal can be especially challenging\u2014we are intelligent but we can also be irrational and our age-old tendency to focus on immediate needs frequently…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[922,1417,1418,92,66,67],"class_list":["post-7325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-and-society","tag-behavior","tag-center-for-research-on-environmental-decisions","tag-decision-research","tag-environment","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-nsf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}