we use less when it costs more

Yes, the article makes some valid points: Social engineering that encourages conservation may help contribute to a public good and it’s definitely not a panacea. However, although some messages may encourage people to do things that save money (and as a result give an illusion of conserving energy), there’s no mention of what happens to all of that money we “saved”.

If we believe stats from financial institutions, personal savings are at all-time lows so the money “saved” is actually being spent elsewhere. In the end, most folks won't willingly changing their lifestyle or reduce comfort levels.

When we look at the bigger picture, are we really using less energy because our neighbours use less, or are we using less because increasing energy costs are forcing us to use less?

And what’s this restoration of “biological restraint” all about? Learning to think clearly about our impact on this planet has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with how we are trained to think: we are the product of economic, political and religious social engineering.

Energysavings

This all is very interesting.
With regards to savings. Is it not just possible, that if the interest rates would be above miniscule and above the rate of inflation + bank rate people would be inclined to save?

Monkey see monkey do

And here is the truth:
"changing human behavior is a lot more cost effective than industrializing farmland with windmills or going into the carbon funeral business".

A fully agree with the above - the only problem is many people are self centered, narcissitic and down right lazy. It takes effort to change consumption behaviour (or any behaviour) and when we have a dishonest government and greedy corporations who want you to spend and spend - it makes it that much harder.

In my opinion the more expensive things become the better ...

The smart ones will change to avoid high prices the stupid ones will change when it hurts. No need to say more on that.

As for the mpg - that is a typical North American thing as gas is cheap here compared to Europe. There, you calculate your cars efficiency as ltr/km - how many liters you use for how many kilometers.

Also, many European cars sold here have higher consumptions here than they do in Europe. Since the gas is cheap here car manufacturers adjust their cars so the same car that runs in Europe on a 5.0ltr/100km gas will run 8.5ltr/km in North America. More money to the oil company.
I find it absolutely insane that many cars still use 8-9ltr/100km - this was the same 20 years ago and nothing has changed here since! Anything over 5.0 or 6.0ltr/100km in city traffic or 5.5ltr/100km in highway is inefficient fuel consumption to say the least.

It is not only people who need to change their habits or copy those who are more conscientious. Companies also should encourage this behaviour by producing more energy efficient products and making them affordable.

Great article!

I agree with Oh Canada that

I agree with Oh Canada that beyond basic human rights for water and food staples, etc., the more expensive things become, the better for conservation.

Nikiforuk is bang on in stating that old-fashioned biblical shaming is one of the most important incentives for social change. Unfortunately, it's difficult to shame others in an era where people barely know their neighbours and no longer attend religious institutions in vast numbers -- and leaders of those institutions who used to excel in public shaming have not kept up with modern and relevant issues, fearful of offending their supporters.

Mainstream newspaper editorials, for example, also used to serve this function, but now do the complete opposite; advertising money and the economic bottom line dictate all, thus, the promotion of the luxury lifestyle continues regardless of reality. For example, this morning in the Calgary Herald, on the same day that the PM of Japan has wisely promoted the idea that his country needs to move away from nuclear power, a former MP, Lee Morrison, editorialized that it's "beyond belief" that Germany is planning to do the same. One would almost think that Mr. Morrison is speaking on behalf of Bruce power, fearful that Canadians might want to do the same.

What IS shameful is that these kinds of bone-headed, short-sighted ideas pass for intelligent discourse in our mainstream media and that the rational public and thinking academia has no equal outlet to counter the nonsense.

OhCanada

All you are doing is selectively choosing your monkeys. Should we imitate China or India?

Canadians do not have to emulate any monkey simply because our population density is such that our environmental impact on the planet is substantially lower than most other countries.

Mr Nikiforuk and his followers have a hard time seeing that the only real elephant in the room is over-population and any changes of the kind being recommended in the article will be negated by population growth in other countries who, because of their population densities, will not be any more effective themselves. For that matter we can negate them ourselves by just allowing our population to expand haphazardly.

The lie is that being green will make a difference. It's ineffective window dressing and Canadians should not be made to feel "guilty" or be "shamed" into doing anything.

That's not to say that we can't clean up our act in some areas but but we don't have to force ourselves into just another monkey house.

to Alda

Biblical shaming? isn't that getting too close to thinking like a Tea Party church-going zealot

Not necessarily shame....

As someone who researches and works on pro-environmental behaviour change, I disagree very strongly with OhCanada's assessment of human nature and motivations for change. As a start, I would suggest David Rock's youtube video "Your Brain at Work". I think this offers a lot more insight to some of the true barriers to change.

As for the programs described, I think there are other ways to interpret the motivation than "shame". Psychologists find great power in consistency and belonging, for example.

But another interpretation is also laid out by Rock in that video. Making decisions is hard and we have limited brain resources--that is the physical fact. And so we use rules of thumb to conserve resources. On of the most common rules of thumb is that if other people are doing it, it is probably okay. And so, sharing that other people are reusing their towels simply gives us a rule of thumb we don't have to think about.

I'm not advocating a return

I'm not advocating a return to biblical shaming by any means, what I'm saying is that nothing that twinges the conscience like it seems to have replaced it.

snert

With 'Monkey see monkey do' I meant that an individual will most likely do what he/she see the majority are doing.

The recent riot in Vancouver is a good example.

Another, more positive example would be:
your neighbor just put up a solar panel on his roof and brags you about the saving he has made in his electricity bill. I think you'll more likely will buy a solar panel yourself to save money like your neighbor does than to buy the solar panel just because someone told you to save the planet.

"Canadians do not have to emulate any monkey simply because our population density is such that our environmental impact on the planet is substantially lower than most other countries."
This statement of yours is pretty ignorant. Canadians waste water more than any nation on this planet. There are plenty lakes here so why bother. Canadians travel everywhere by car, even to the corner store just 2 blocks away.

BC is slightly better than other provinces but I can tell you from experience that the amount of water and food an average family does here would be enough to feed a family in Africa for a year!

perhaps the next time you travel keep your eye open. To say that Canadians don't have to worry because there is plenty to waste here is ignorant and arrogant to say the least. And totally misses the fact that everything is connected.

I agree on your point that overpopulation is the problem for many environmental issues that we are currently experiencing. And really space isn't the problem because you can fit 7 billion people into LA. The problem is resources - and that has everything to do with the environment and how we manage it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc4HxPxNrZ0

Ah Ruben...

... I don't think we have limited brain resources. We think we do therefore we do have limited brain resources. Self fulfilling prophecy in my opinion.

The majority of people change when it hurts. And for some that change is life altering and for the better. See a person who survived cancer as an example and is not the same person anymore physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. For some the change will never occur because their 'pain' threshold is high. For others the change comes because they made up their mind. That is also a fact and it doesn't only rely on brain chemistry which by the way can be affected by the food we eat.

Change happens when I decide and not when my brain says so. The brain is simply an organ that I can train. This is how it worked for me over the years and I think this is how it worked for many others; athletes, artists, regular folks etc.

Dr. Joe Dispenza's Evolve your brain is a good read for this.
www.drjoedispenza.com

OhCanada

That's not what I said. I said "The lie is that being green will make a difference." Just to reiterate, it won't but that doesn't mean we can't do green things.

What it does mean is that it is not necessary to resort to extreme tactics to get us to make changes. I.E. Shame, guilt, monkey-see-monkey-do (not necessarily extreme) or for that matter intimidation or down right bullying should not be options.

Bad example. I would think he had rocks in his head.

The only water that is really wasted is water that is too polluted for the environment to decontaminate it quickly. The only time water can truly be wasted, in your context, is when it is in short supply locally or when the system can not keep up. Then water conservation makes sense.

Canada will never export large volumes of water to the rest of the planet. It makes no sense, environmentally. As long as the local supply is adequate then why feel guilty about having a long shower or watering your lawn. As to industrial pollution, there's no doubt waste water should be treated to the point potability before it is released back into the environment.

Oh? Canada?

"I don't think we have limited brain resources. We think we do therefore we do have limited brain resources. Self fulfilling prophecy in my opinion."

And that is your opinion. The scientists that study this have different answers from their actual research. I think you are right to have a warmly skeptical approach to science, but opinions do not make it so.

"The majority of people change when it hurts."

Pain is clearly a motivator of change. Certainly everybody will change when hurt, even if they are only pulling their hand off a hot stove. But the majority of change is not caused by pain. The majority of change is caused by the circumstances around us. Take cell phones. Ten years ago nobody had them, now everybody does--no pain involved. Modeling, mirroring, copying--these things are much more likely drivers of change in this circumstance.

Unfortunately, we have a very stunted way of talking about change. If change is caused by pain why do smokers smoke and drinkers drink?

In fact a very large study found 90% of people post heart operations would not change their lifestyle, EVEN THOUGH it was required for survival. Death, the biggest pain of all, was not enough of a motivator for change. So everybody changes from pain, but not all change is from pain.

Your own statement that we should do something because it is the right thing shows a motivation other than pain. Everyone has that, though not always on the same topics that are important to us.

Pain is probably the least useful motivator of change we have in our toolbox.

"Change happens when I decide and not when my brain says so."

Change sometimes happen when you decide, but mostly not. Our brain processes 99.99% of our surroundings unconsciously and makes decisions that we act on without question. A very few choices are offered for us to deliberate and consider, and even those are greatly influenced by our social circumstance, our previous experiences etc. Many of us will believe the rational economic actor of Adam Smith is a false concept, but we are not yet willing to admit how little of our life is under our conscious control.

Ruben

Although our response to direct physical pain is part of our (along with the rest of the flora and fauna on this planet) basic survival response behaviour, there’s a behaviour component that has an even greater impact on our survival: the conditioned response. You will “feel” pain even though no one has hit, bit, kicked or posed a direct threat to your welfare.

From the moment of birth (and probably before) we are trained, through simple Pavlovian conditioning, to respond to stimuli we associate with pain (and pleasure). These stimuli are cues that trigger pain or pleasure-related memories. It’s how we come to believe in judgments like good, bad, right, wrong, honest, dishonest, etc. (The list of judgments we are trained to use is endless.) We aren’t born with this knowledge; it’s a product of training and conditioning.

Where problems arise, in understanding why people think and behave the way they do, stems from the fact most folks don’t understand how these judgments/cues trigger memories that are pain/pleasure related. Instead they come to believe the judgment is reality. A simple example: Someone who has just received news of a tragedy will often say they “feel like they’ve been kicked in the stomach”. Obviously they haven’t, but the pain they feel is no less real. Another example: Someone verbally labels you (criticism) and you get upset and angry yet they haven’t physically touched you. In both cases you are responding to memories that are pain related. Fairly straightforward stuff, but here’s where it gets tricky. In the case of a pain-triggering criticism or label, the person doing the labeling also feels pain. The reason is simple; they’ve experienced a situation where the label has been associated with pain. If they weren’t conditioned to make that connection, why would they use the criticism?

At the individual level, pain and pleasure, and their relationship to how we are trained to think, is the least understood component of individual behaviour. However, at the institutional level, it is a well-used tool and it is responsible for steering the way society behaves. (Think about the impact the church has on our behaviour.)

In spite of the known harmful effects, people continue to smoke and drink because they are addicted and the pain of quitting, real or imagined, is outweighed by the pleasure they receive from continuing.