Colleagues:
I think that most of you who have upgraded almost any major
appliance (e.g., refrigerator, central hear/air, etc.) in you home recently
have observed marked reductions in your energy costs compared with costs
for the older units. When my wife and I upgraded our furnace/AC from an
older, 48% efficient (furnace - we first had an energy audit of our house
conducted, which let us know just how efficient our furnace was) to a 93%
efficient unit our bills were cut by nearly 50%. That translated into a
payback time (cost to recoup the additional cost of the unit over a less
efficient unit) to approximately 5 years, hopefully less than a third of
the life expectancy of the new unit. After pay back has been reached those
additional savings from lower natrual gas bills are money in our pockets,
rather than in the energy company shareholder pockets. My wife and I have
also seen increased savings via increased efficiency in the refrigerator
and dishwasher we bought, as a result of installation of additional
insulation in our crawl-space and attic, as well as with two cars we've
purchased. It's with this background that I have been most upset that the
Bush administration's proposed energy policy has given, at best, only lip
service to conservation and efficiency improvements. Just the other day I
received a message (copied below) suggesting that concerned citizens stage
a "Rolling Blackout" to give the Bush administration a message that
Americans support conservation and efficiency as part of a responsible
energy policy. Please consider taking part in the "Rolling Blackout"
described below.
Sincerely,
Henry Spratt
> ============
> ROLL YOUR OWN BLACKOUT
> THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER
> JUNE 21, 2001 THURS EVE,
> 7-10pm worldwide, all time zones
>
> As an alternative to George W. Bush's energy policies
> and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation and
> alternative fuels, there will be a voluntary rolling
> blackout on the first day of summer, June 21 at
> 7pm - 10pm in any time zone (this will roll it across the planet).
>
> Its a simple protest and a symbolic act. Turn out your
> lights from 7pm-10pm on June 21. Unplug whatever you
> can unplug in your house. Light a candle to the Sungoddess,
> kiss and tell or not, take a stroll in the dark, invent ghost stories,
> anything that's not electronic - have fun in the dark.
>
> Read the 1999 book "Natural Capitalism" by Hawken and Lovins to
> learn that conservation/high efficiency technologies already ARE on-
> the-shelf. If implemented these revolutionary ideas would pay
> themselves off within five years, after which we'd be pumping far
> less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and saving bucks to
> boot.
>
> Forward this email as widely as possible, to your
> government representatives and environmental contacts.
>
> Let them know we want global education, participation
> and funding in conservation, efficiency and
> alternative fuel efforts -- and an end to over-
> exploitation and misuse of the earth's resources.
>
> Anyone knows that the Cheney-Bush team is blowing smoke when
> they tell us that "... conservation can't help, it'll just be too
> expensive to implement those technologies..." While on the other
> hand, technology to develop and deploy weapons to blow incoming
> ICBMs out of the sky are easy to come by.
______________________________________________________________________________
Henry G. Spratt, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Ave.
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Ph: (423)755-4383
Fax: (423)785-2285
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://worf.ceca.utc.edu/wcb/schools/UTC/2653/hspratt/hspratt.html
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