Butterflies

We’ve come a long way. We’ve buttered a lot of flies together, made a lot of changes. Much of our effort has been focused on climate change, given we’re keen to avoid sea levels reaching nipple height and sharks nipping at our crotches. We’d prefer to skip hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides and judgment days. We’re recycling more, we’re wasting less water, we’re buying less frozen food, we’re testing fewer nuclear missiles. The point of all these changes is to reduce energy consumption because energy produced from fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change. And while most of us will have switched to renewable energy there is more to be done. Or more to be done less. More to be cut down on. There’s less to do. But we need to do more of it. More less-doing.

We need to use less energy. There are many ways to conserve energy we’ve not touched on, one of which is me slapping them all on one page instead of writing about every one of them individually. I’m bloody knackered.

Around the home
Let’s start with the obvious and stop leaving things on standby. There can’t be anyone left in the world unaware it takes power to keep that little red light on your TV and stereo, that clock on your microwave, that apparent nothing on your digital radio and they’re all things you can live without quite happily. Let’s turn our shit off at the plug.

Let’s not leave things to charge for longer than necessary. We’re years past having to leave our laptops and mobiles charging overnight. Let’s see how quickly ours charge and never leave them a minute longer. Let’s occasionally turn off the TV and read a goddamn book.

Let’s turn off lights when we leave the room. Let’s not turn them on when there’s sun outside; open curtains and lit bulbs are a silly combo. Let’s clean our windows to let sunlight in and better light and heat the room. Let’s get the best energy-saving bulbs we can afford.

Let’s use less heating. If we’re cold, here’s a pro tip: Clothes exist. Let’s put on another layer before we put on the heating. If we’re cold and alone, let’s make a hot water bottle instead of heating every room in the house. Let’s buy thicker duvets for winter. Let’s shut our windows when the heating’s on, you dicks. Let’s put foil or insulation behind our radiators, let’s dust them to let their heat out, let’s bleed them to make them more efficient. Let’s turn our thermostats down and see if we notice the difference. Let’s get smart thermostats to turn on when we’re on our way home, Jetsons style. Let’s get smart meters to monitor our use. Let’s insulate our boilers and pipes, and when we replace our boilers let’s get the most energy efficient ones we can afford. Let’s contact our energy suppliers to see if they can throw any cash at us to help; there are tons of schemes to help us do this stuff.

Let’s make the place less drafty. Let’s cover gaps in our doors, windows and chimneys. Let’s get double, triple or secondary glazing. If we have them, let’s insulate our attics or lofts or whatever we call the top floor of our houses. If we have walls, let’s insulate behind them. If we have floors, let’s insulate under them. Let’s cover wooden or tiled floors with rugs.

In the kitchen
Let’s only heat the water we need. Let’s not boil two pints when we’re making one cup of tea. Let’s not fill a pan when we’re only cooking a small portion of veg or pasta. Let’s put the lid on to bring things to the boil more quickly and with less energy, and let’s not use hobs bigger than the pan sitting on them. Let’s settle for regular-ass fridges; we’re not on Cribs. Let’s dust the coils on the back of the fridge to increase their efficiency. Let’s fill our freezers with fresh cooked food to prevent energy being wasted on chilling half empty compartments. Let’s use microwaves and slow cookers instead of conventional ovens. Let’s not use microwaves to defrost something we could have taken out of the freezer yesterday. Let’s buy fan ovens to cook more quickly and when any of our appliances break let’s replace them with the most energy efficient models we can find.

Let’s wash clothes at the lowest temperature we can muster, and only do full loads because they use less water than two half loads. Let’s dry clothes in the air like we did quite happily for thousands of years. Let’s put tumble dryers in the same column as electric can openers, the column marked ‘Gadgets so pointless only 50s housewives would take them seriously.’

At work
Let’s harass our bosses to install energy-efficient heating and lighting. Let’s insist lights and signage stay off overnight. Let’s have them get motion sensors to turn off lights in empty meeting rooms and bathrooms, and hopefully repeat the incident at my old place where someone got off the pot to turn the lights back on and accidentally shat on the floor. I’ve been laughing at that for 12 years.

We have to do this. We have to use less energy. Little by little, watt by watt, Butterfly by Butterfly let’s cut down. It’s either that or the sea level/shark/crotch thing.

Photo credit: Excursion at DeviantArt