Despite the fact that energy affects every facet of
our lives — from the price of fruit to the wars we wage
— most Americans give nary a thought to the topic. “People
tend not to focus on energy in their lives, workplaces and
decisions — they leave it to the experts,” says Howard
Geller, director of the Boulder-based Southwest Energy Efficiency
Project. “We write our checks to the utilities and complain, fill
up our gas tanks and complain, but it’s still a small part of
our expenses.” And that’s part of the problem: “When energy
is a small cost, it’s too easy to kind of keep doing what
you’re doing,” he says. But doing what we’re doing is
not sustainable.
In his latest book, Energy
Revolution, Geller doesn’t outline one single,
clear path to a sustainable energy future. As former head of the
Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, which he led for 20 years,
he knows better. Instead, Geller groups policy reform ideas into 12
different categories, ranging from voluntary agreements to market
reforms. Today, fossil fuels provide 80 percent of the
world’s energy — but they aren’t going to last
forever. As Geller notes in the book, “the world has experienced
energy transitions before, and these transitions coincided with and
literally fueled economic and social transitions.” In other words,
it’s best to find solutions today, rather than waiting until
the riots and recessions of tomorrow.
Although Geller
writes that “there is no ‘silver bullet’ for overcoming
the barriers to a more sustainable energy future,” he believes
there are plenty of opportunities for change. Rather than waiting
for federal leadership, Geller suggests making smart consumer
decisions, such as buying energy-efficient appliances. He also
encourages people to work for statewide renewable energy programs,
such as the one Colorado voters passed last November.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Getting smarter about energy use.
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