August Manners Sneak Preview

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Dear Meg,

I'm not sure if this necessarily qualifies as a manners question. per se, but I was curious as to whether or not there is any etiquette to the issue of energy conservation. I read an article recently in the The New York Times called "Shivering for Luxury" about how more expensive stores are kept much cooler in the summer than lower priced ones so shoppers would stay longer and spend more money. That seemed kind of sneaky to me. This got me to thinking more about the whole issue of waste and conservation in general. What do you say?

Tony

Dear Tony,

I read the same article. If I recall correctly, it pointed out that for each lowered degree on the thermastat an additional 8 percent of energy is consumed. That's no small potatoes if you're talking about a 10 degree difference between, say, Hermes at 66 degrees and a small locally owned grocery store hanging in at 76. Math is hardly my area of expertise but I think that means the big H is using 80 percent more energy than the poor little grocer?

It might be easy to argue that it's rude to make a customer uncomfortable but that's a rather short-sighted, not to mention, self-serving argument. On my best days I try to view my own actions against what has come to be known as the "Seven Generations" test. This is a standard adapted from a constitution written more than 500 years ago by the Iroquois nation, a confederation of Native American peoples suggesting we must always try to be aware of the consequences of our actions since they are but a part of an interdependent web. If an activity is sustainable, it can go on forever without compromising the ability of future generations to lead a quality life. Since the process of determining if an act is sustainable is always based on the information at hand, we must continually reevaluate our actions.

I would say that keeping thermastats at home and work well above 70 degress is surely part of attempting to live a sustainable lifestyle and good manners, to boot. This said, I going to get a bit heavy on you this month and tell you our nation's over-dependence on private cars (especially gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles) is threatening our planet and children's children lives times 5 much more than keeping our thermastats too low. Don't get me wrong, every little bit helps and it's good form to do everything within your personal power to care for the environment. "You must add your light to the sum of light" as Leo Tolstoy once wrote. These words are rumored to have originated in the Gospel of Matthew. I'm afraid I know even less about the bible than mathematics.

In any case, a more recent article in The Times indicates that America's still increasing pool of more than 200 million autos swallows up more than11 percent of the world's daily oil output. While the rest of the world has increased it use of oil a mere 19 percent since the last big oil crisis of 1973, our consumption has gone up 35 percent. Yikes.

David J. O'Reilly, CEO and Chairman of Texas-based oil behemoth Chevron, a strong proponent of drilling for oil in in the Artic Wildlife Preserve and forging countries such as Angola, Nigeria, Algeria and Libya whose populations have been historically ravaged by war and human rights abuses (very bad manners, btw), readily admits it took humanity 125 years to consume a mere trillion barrels of crude while the next trillion will probably be used up in only 35 years. Mr. O'Reilly's doesn't sound too worried about this, however, because he believes "there is plenty of room to play". I don't know about you, Tony, but I enjoy a game of scrabble or taboo and tossing the frisbee with my niece but the things these oil big wigs are proponents of don't sound like all that much fun to me. To be specific and to answer your question more directly, they sound wasteful, not very well thought out and as far from the idea of conservation as possible. To be fair, I doubt Mr. O' Reilly or any of his colleagues took their respective career paths because they necessarily concur with my particular enviromental philosophies.

I hope this response does not read like one of those all too common blog rants or, even worse, make me sound like an AM radio talk show host who has had a spot too much caffeine and possesses far too many uninformed opinions for their own good. If so, I apologize. Thank you ever so much for the question, however. I am thrilled to have an opportunity to address an issue I care so much about and I hope I've been helpful. Stay cool -- within reason, of course.

Love,

Meg