[Greenbuilding] FW: ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Reuben Deumling]

On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Steven Tjiang <steve at tjiang.org> wrote:

> Reuben, you're right in "purist" sense but I think the energy star dryer
> program is still a net win.
>
> A net win for the planet.  Think long term. If we run a program to
> convince people to line dry OR we make energy star dryers the standard,
> which one would result in less energy use for clothes drying?


That is a useful thought experiment. I don't think we know the answer. What
we do know (or I think we know) is that we can't afford to burn any more
coal or oil or natural gas, even for really important stuff (e.g., food
distribution). Given that we need to phase out our use of, and dependence
on fossil fuels, pursuing policies that entrench appliances that depend on
these fuels seems the height of folly. At what point do we acknowledge that
we went down a blind alley?

At some point we have to choose, can't have it both ways. Channeling the
early Amory Lovins, I'll suggest that pursuing more efficient clothes
dryers is incompatible as a policy with advocating for increased use of
clothes lines.
"A society cannot aspire to be both conspicuously consumptive and elegantly
frugal. The hard and soft paths are culturally and institutionally
antagonistic, and furthermore, compete for the same limited resources."  The
Energy Controversy: Soft Path Questions & Answers p. 5



> Of course, we should do both.  BTW, clothes dryer don't have to use fossil
> fuels.  Mine is electric and when I use it, it is powered by renewables.
>
> In the end, the only sure way to solve the climate crisis is to raise
> energy price, i.e. carbon tax.  Our politicians won't do it and the public
> won't accept it.  So I guess we are doomed.
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20120721/600eb7dc/attachment.html>