[Greenbuilding] FW: ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Reuben Deumling]

On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Steven Tjiang <steve at tjiang.org> wrote:

>  And anything that preserves convenience but saves energy will be a net
> win.
>

A net win for whom?
Anything that uses fossil fuels to dry clothes, however efficiently, is not
a net win for the players I care about. Call me a purist or a curmudgeon.
Not only can we no longer afford to pretend that drying clothes with fossil
fuels (or with wind-generated electricity) is responsible, if we endorse
this line of thinking who's going to point out the fallacies, the myopia,
the nuttiness?

Convenience is a social construct.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
The Christian Science Monitor
October 3, 2001, Wednesday
SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 9
A new line on terrorism
Jonathan Rowe
POINT REYES STATION, CALIF.

My friend John Francis maintains that we must be the change we want to
see. When he witnessed an oil spill in San Francisco Bay in the early
1970s, he swore off motorized transit for almost 20 years. When he saw
people spouting opinions but not listening, he stopped talking, too, so
that he could learn to listen better.

John walked and listened all the way across the United States, and down
most of South America as well. He observed how changes in himself rippled
out into his surroundings. Since he wasn't talking, family and friends had
to communicate by letter - a small step, as it were, for literacy. Since
he walked everywhere, others had to adjust their pace to his. Life slowed
down where John went. So, when we first spoke about recent events, it was
not surprising that John didn't dwell on feckless jingoism and the
rest. Instead, the talk turned to clotheslines.

Yes, clotheslines. This nation's entanglements in Central Asia and the
Middle East arise largely from its appetite for oil. This appetite leads
to trouble continuously. Already there are efforts in Congress to use the
terrorist attacks as an excuse to open up the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge for oil drilling, supposedly to make us "energy independent."

Yet, if terrorists could find a way to blast into the Pentagon, how hard
will it be for them to hit a pipeline meandering through hundreds of miles
of Alaskan tundra? Besides, the Alaskan oil wouldn't start flowing for up
to 10 years; and even then, it would provide gas for only about 2 percent
of the nation's cars and trucks. When it ran out we'd be back to the
Mideast, more dependent than ever.

That brings us back to homely clotheslines. Some 5 to 10 percent of
residential energy use in the US goes to washing and drying clothes. Use
cold water to wash, and you cut energy use on the washing side by 85
percent. Hang the clothes to dry and that's 100 percent on the drying
side. Together it's the British-thermal-unit equivalent of at least a
third of the oil in the Arctic refuge. In other words, genuine energy
independence.

John Francis and I both use clotheslines, as do many of our friends. It
can seem a bit inconvenient at first. But soon that feeling flips, and it
seems idiotic to pay a power company for something the sun provides for
free. The clothes smell fresher and last longer. The environmental impacts
are totally benign. As for terrorism, even the most determined adversary
would have problems trying to knock out all the nation's clotheslines.

Of course, not everyone can use a clothesline. But the point here is how
small steps can make a large difference. The war on terrorism is shaping
up as another government production. We are told our role is to just watch
and shop. But we can never win this battle unless ordinary citizens start
to take responsibility. As John Francis says, "If we can hang out flags,
why can't we hang out laundry, too," as a sign that we are really serious
about our independence?

Start in the laundry room, and pretty soon we get to the driveway, where
the potential savings are so great, it's practically ridiculous. If just 3
to 4 percent of US cars were as efficient as the new hybrid cars, it would
save the equivalent of all the oil in the Arctic refuge, observe Amory and
Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute. This is energy no terrorist
could touch, because it's energy we wouldn't use. It would reduce both the
opportunity for terrorism and the geopolitical urgencies that feed it.

Cutting our dependency on oil would mean little increase of power in
Washington, moreover. One of the deeper ironies of the current situation
is how the Bush administration, once so dismissive of government, is
embarking on a major increase in its reach into our lives. Higher
fuel-economy standards seem mild by comparison.

To some degree, more surveillance and the like is necessary. But then,
should we not seek to minimize the need for it? Should we not curb the
energy waste that invites trouble of so many kinds? Somehow, we have
bought into the notion that strength lies in appetite, and that progress
means doing less with more, when the ages show the opposite to be the
case.

Let us hope our leaders start to see this. Let us hope that, while they
launch a war on terrorists, they will encourage modes of energy use that
make us less vulnerable to terrorists. Meanwhile, the rest of us don't
have to wait. We don't have to accept the role of dutiful shoppers who
watch the government do the job on TV.

"It's when we commit ourselves to do something, it's when we take that
first step, that we become a participant - a committed participant," John
Francis says.

"And in being a participant we change the world."

Jonathan Rowe is a fellow at the Tomales Bay Institute, and a former
Monitor staff writer.

 (c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor
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