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On May 3 and 4, right about the time the press coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf cranked into high gear, we conducted a poll to understand what, if anything, this event was doing to the mindset of Americans on energy.
Specifically, we wanted to know (and we asked the question this way): Had the recent West Virgina mine explosion and the spill in the Gulf made them think more about the human and environmental costs associated with their own energy consumption?
Ten percent said they strongly agreed with that statement, and 32 percent said they agreed.
Now, it’s safe to say that the 10 percent who strongly agreed are people who are already pretty environmentally aware. The more interesting group is the 32 percent. This group likely includes some folks who hadn’t done much thinking about this before now. That’s interesting/exciting because if the understanding the average consumer has about their energy consumption increases, the likelihood that they’ll be more open to green messages and energy conservation messages increases. Very good news for all of us marketers of EE and green products.
The news just got even better.
We asked the question again during our Green Living Pulse poll, which was in the field May 21-31 (and will publish in early August). In that poll, 18 percent strongly agreed with the statement and 34 percent agreed. That 10 point increase in agreement was equally skimmed off the other three categories (undecided, disagree and strongly disagree). So self awareness and general contemplation about one’s own personal energy consumption, and how that ties to the environment and humanity at large, is on the rise.
Again, very good news for marketers of green and energy efficient products. This trend is in keeping with other data points we’ve seen recently in our studies -- specifically that if people have a personal connection to an environmental issue, they tend to be more aware about environmental issues and seek out greener choices. This is true for moms who have kids with asthma or food allergies, it’s true for Americans who have relatives in Third World countries with no access to clean drinking water, and now it’s true for those of us who feel a personal connection to the Gulf. I did a quick Google search to see how many of us have vacationed there at least once and couldn’t find a number. My gut instinct is that many of us have. And personal connection = real concern, and real concern = behavior change.
So long story short: Americans may be more open that ever to energy conservation messages right now. And that’s an opportunity worth pursuing.
Disclaimer: Please know when I refer to these findings as “good news,” I in no way think the disaster in the Gulf is a good thing at all. Quite the contrary. This post is really about the silver lining in an otherwise very bleak situation.
Suzanne C. Shelton is founder, president and CEO of Shelton Group, an advertising agency focused exclusively on motivating mainstream consumers to make sustainable choices. The original version of her post and the accompanying chart were published on the Shelton Group blog and are reprinted with permission.
Images CC licensed by Flickr user Lousiana Sierra Club.
Another Wake Up Call for a Petroleum-Hooked People
I think that Suzanne Shelton is very wise to point out that any eco-awakening in America that results from this spill will be merely a silver lining. I hope the spill is the most severe wake-up call we ever receive, and I hope we have the collective wisdom to act on it.
Jon Stewart pointed out on The Daily Show - with his customary mix of rapier wit, satire and bitter irony - that the past eight presidents have publically called for a broad energy strategy to address our national addiction:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent...
The chilling reality is that with only about 5% of the world's population here in the US, we use about a quarter of the world's petroleum production - over 20 million barrels a day - for everything from plastics to pesticides and from fuels to pharmaceuticals.
However, we rank a distant 11th on the list of top 16 oil nations, with only 2.33% of their total - that's 22.7 billion gallons. Ok, that's a lot of oil, but if we ever have to rely on it as our only source, we've got just 1100 days to empty.
(Note: I'm not counting Canada in those 16 nations because all but a mere six billion barrels of their oil is locked up in tar sands, and extracting it is prohibitive in terms of the low energy ROI and the extreme pollution that accompanies that extraction.)
Eighty percent of the earth's oil is in those sixteen countries, and 69% of that total is in the Middle East.
China and India each have populations over a billion that are growing very tired of riding their bikes, and are looking to the consumptive West for lifestyle goals. That accelerated demand will soon outstrip production worldwide, and our brave and honorable men and women in the armed services will be even more hard pressed to continually guarantee our access to prehistoric sunlight energy drawn out from under Arabian feet.
What this means is that rock-ribbed conservatives should be screaming about the national security threat this situation presents, and they should realize that we can't ever hope to drill our way back into cheap energy abundance.
We've been waiting since the days of Nixon and Carter for a national energy strategy that weans us off our slippery habit, and the goal has proven elusive to every generation since.
Here's my two-part solution: First, our 2,776 conventional power plants - nearly all of which burn fossil fuel - can be replaced by a line of 100 solar thermal plants across our Sunbelt, using molten salt for energy storage. Each plant will only need to measure 10.5 miles on a side (for a combined 100-plant total of only three tenths of one percent of our nation's land area). The melted salt stores heat for down-time power production, and makes this a solid 24/7/365 answer for all the electricity needs of the whole nation.
Google just came out with a process for creating mirrors for solar thermal that seems likely to cut construction costs in half and bring the kWh price to around five cents. Have a look here:
http://www.ecogeek.org/solar-power/3090-google-develops-new-solar-therma...
For those of you who are interested, here's a little more discussion of the potential of solar thermal:
http://2greenenergy.com/solar-thermal-leader/2534/
Second, we replace our national transportation system - personal, mass transit and shipping - with cutting edge all-electric vehicles that are far more energy efficient than the 15% to 20% we get from even the best internal combustion systems. The various factors behind this transportation transformation are already in place and coming together rapidly. Here's more on that:
http://2greenenergy.com/electric-vehicle-adoption/2890/
http://2greenenergy.com/epa/3003/
The barriers to these solutions are based neither in science nor resource scarcity. The most difficult hurdles are political and financial. Yet we must pursue a workable solution while we still have access to fairly cheap and abundant dirty fuels to enable us to build the clean system. If we continue to delay until the crisis breaks, it will be too late.
Suzanne's so very welcome silver lining is that our national awareness is growing again - let's hope it grows fast enough.
Craig Shields
Editor
2GreenEnergy.com