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<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The
lack of user participation in the solution is a real weakness. Yes, the
"do the solution for me" approach is more appealing for those that do not
care. However, it suffers from less potential. Caring is the
critical ingredient. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A local
principle at a middle school i adopting a garden and compost pile as part of
schools instruction on sustainability. Building off of cafeteria scraps, he is
encouraging his student’s families to bring food scraps to school to contribute
to compost pile. He is issuing willing students/families suitable
buckets to do that. I felt new hope when he described preschoolers all in
line source separating. Many potent solutions are possible with active
participation that are not available without. It is just a matter of
habit. We brush and floss our teeth as a matter of habit. Why not
other sustainable practices?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">By
the way, my spouse has accepted the on off switch for hot water. However,
she has not accepted the sole use of the cloths line instead of dryer.
However, when installing a new thermal barrier around house, I became more aware
of the continuous air leakage from dryer vent. As a result, I installed
dryer on back porch. We are going through our five stages of mourning to
accept the greater participation behavior of putting all our cloths on
line.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Eli
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></FONT>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=9watts@gmail.com href="mailto:9watts@gmail.com">Reuben Deumling</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=greenbuilding@lists.bioenergylists.org
href="mailto:greenbuilding@lists.bioenergylists.org">Green Building</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A
title=Greenbuilding@bioenergylists.org
href="mailto:Greenbuilding@bioenergylists.org">Greenbuilding@bioenergylists.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, April 21, 2011 10:41
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Greenbuilding] Opinions on
electric tankless HW heaters?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 6:32 AM, Steven Tjiang <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:steve@tjiang.org">steve@tjiang.org</A>></SPAN>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"
class=gmail_quote>This is getting off-topic.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>Maybe, or maybe not. <BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"
class=gmail_quote><BR>
<DIV>But generally....we need to learn to pick our battles when it comes to
saving energy as a society. Hot water systems that saves energy and provide
the same level of comfort w/o user intervention will get wider adoption and
hence ultimately save more energy in total, than something that might
individually save more energy but receive little adoption.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>The widespread adoption and hence cultural familiarity with thermostats
in the societies in which I've lived would seem to confirm your assertion, but
I would not want to foreclose the possibility that *greater* user involvement
could, for some, lead to positive feedback in terms of energy conservation.
I'm just not convinced that we can have our thermostat and save it too. The
automated/hands off/let the expert systems run my show approach is based on
certain infrastructures (grid, central boiler, liquid fuels) and assumptions
(progress = automation). This is not true for everyone in all circumstances.
See the rise in folks who have chickens in their urban backyards, the
popularity of farmers markets, putting up your own food, the DIY movement, the
thousand and one efforts underway to *do* more than we may have grown
accustomed to. I would not want to exclude user interventions in domestic
provisioning a priori just because culturally we've been through an extended
cheap-liquid-fuel-inspired phase where automation carried the
day.<BR><BR>Reuben Deumling<BR></DIV><BR></DIV>
<P>
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