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One of an 11 poster kit.
This poster was part of a comprehensive resource that was facilitated into New Zealand school throughout the second half of the 1990s till 2000. It was revolutionary in its time in that it encouraged primary schools children (Age 5-12) and their communities to begin linking and calculating how their use of Bulk-generated electricity and Natural Gas impacted on their carbon dioxide emissions. There are risks attached to the use of the poster and it contains possibly the most fundamental error we can make.
The fundamental flaw is that its symbol use links to a common misconception that humans can save energy. Our Governments, the media, commercial interests and educators promote this misconception at every level. There are reasons why they do this but this is not the page to discuss it.
The Principle of the Conservation of Energy states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed and is subject to constant transformation. Humans have constantly searched to find some practical exception to this principle and have failed to find one. For this reason I agree with those that argue the Conservation Principle is the nearest that we have to a natural law. As such I believe it should be the foundation of education, including Environmental Education
The Conservation Principle has profound implications. It speaks of enormous potential and suggests that energy is bounteous as the universe(s). Always there have been humans who will deny this for reasons of greed, vanity and ego in general. Always there have be charlatans who have attempted to say their product is energy. Since prehistoric times there have been shysters who have claimed they have developed perpetual motion machines that will bring those that purchase them immense wealth or elixors of youth that will bring those that purchase them eternal life and unchanging form. Always there has been a market for these products.
The modern day equivalents are the merchant bankers who control oil, Gas and Bulk-gen electricity resources. They would have us believe that these products are vital and bounteous as energy. Indeed they describe them as energy and encourage us to use them as though they are as bounteous as the universe and because we have no options. This, of course, is a recipe for disaster and the collapse of civilisation.
The Principle of the Conservation of Energy tells us we do have options for it states energy comes in many forms and these are constantly changing. In the human context this is a message of great hope even as it is a reminder of our responsibility.
The hope lies in the awareness that we are fortunate that on Earth we have an immense range of resources and options at our disposal. These include the bounty of incoming solar radiation and the ability to control our rate of procreation.
The responsibility comes with the knowledge that each of these forms is of limited and transient nature. We need conserve them for our children’s children for many of those forms, once gone, will not occur on Earth for billions of years again, if ever.
Hence the fundamental flaw of this poster. It works to deny the Conservation Principle and can too easily become the conduit for the shysters and charlatans in our midst. This can happen if teachers, for instance, associate the poster with only one or two resources such as Bulk-gen electricity and Gas.
Such associations are high risk for a number of reasons. If applied to the two resources just mentioned without provision of practical strategies and technology to mitigate the impacts on households of reductions in Bulk-gen electricity and Gas, the poster can induce hopelessness and deprivation culminating in family disharmony, ill health and even premature death.
If the use of other resources such as transport fuels is omitted from calculations, then there is a risk that schools and communities fail to consider the possible negative impacts of assumptions and flawed uses of these resources.
The conservation of the thermal balances that sustain us can be enhanced by increased $ expenditure and by increasing carbon emissions. This occurs when a use of a resource decreases overall expenditure and net emissions. For instance, it is possible to calculate the cost and emissions generated with the installation of double-glazing. Such a learning activity may show very clearly that expenditure and emissions are essentially a one off and are low when graphed over time.
This poster is not designed for this essential possibility i.e. certain expenditure and emissions can be relatively positive.
My suggestion is that the poster is more sustainable if it simply provides symbols for registering kilowatts/joules used, replaces the words “energy action” with “resource use” and the right hand graph (CO2) be left blank. It could be that methane emissions or forest conservation are the issues.
The poster can be used to chart net dollars expenditure and emissions. It is important that resource uses not calculated are mentioned with those that are.
When using the poster I believe it is helpful if teachers constantly ask how their use of it supports and contradicts the Conservation Principle, what sector of society does their use of it most benefit and what are the risks and benefits of putting a dollar value on a resource use.
Below is my response to a teacher who wrote the following to me
“I am intrigued therefore about your comment that Enviroschools lacks “science². What part is unscientific? Sure, we know from the Laws of Thermodynamics that “energy saving” is nonsensical but the problem with scientific language is that it is just that a language that has a different meaning to that used in everyday life. Energy saving light bulbs are known to Joe/Jill Public yet this doesn¹t necessarily sabotage the integrity of science.”
As this person observes, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are commonly described as “energy savers”. As he also points out this is nonsense. A CFL transforms approx 80% of the electricity is uses into light and the remainder into heat. By contrast the traditional luminescent bulb transforms approx 20% of the electricity it uses into light and the remainder into heat. The amount of energy remains unchanged. If lighting is the objective, then the CFL can be described as the Greater Efficiency Lamp.
Note the comparative net efficiency of both types of lamps varies with use and installation. A luminescent bulb placed near a person can raise the ambient temperature of an insulated room. A CFL placed as a downlight in the ceiling can lower the ambient temperature as it become a thermal bridge.
Here is my response to the teacher:
Instead of the detailed and tedious reply I could offer you, I will leave you with a series of simple questions that I ask re saving/conserving energy/ energy savers:
Do I employ science (honesty, reflection, time, inclusiveness, collegiality, care etc)?
What does the Principal of the Conservation of Energy state?
Do I believe this to be true?
If not, can I provide one instance where a human being has created a perpetual motion machine or become immortal or has conserved energy?
If I believe the Principle, which states energy is bounteous as the universe(s), then why need any person save/conserve energy? How can anyone conserve that which by its very nature is conserved on such a scale?
Who benefits from confusion about the Conservation Principal and the sense of deprivation/exclusion that comes with learning energy is not bounteous? (Think emotional manipulation by the PR industry using “energy crises”, “energy collapses”, “energy failure”, “energy breakdowns”, “energy droughts” and allied mechanisms such as “black outs”, “power cuts” “power failures” etc)
Why do certain business sectors spend billions of dollars defining themselves as energy and re-engineering the energy symbol in general and the energy conservation symbol in particular?
What would I do if I were their PR company promoting the short-term interests of these sectors?
In general, what framework am I establishing when I tell children that humans and/or our devices can save energy and who are the principal beneficiaries of the framework?
Is it possible to sustain science when describing lighting devices that transform electricity into light more efficiently? (Is it possible to describe their enhanced efficiency without all the attendant risks from evoking the Bulk-gen Electricity sector’s use of the energy symbol?) If so, what have I got to lose by using alternative and less risky symbols (terms, words, illustrations etc)?
Again, do I employ science?
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