Addicted to cheap power

I started admiring Mennonites who live without electricity because in the long run I think they might be better off than our ‘advanced’ society. Their way of life does not kill them but has a lot less impact on the environment than our wasteful,automated and motorized life style. Besides, I don’t think I have ever seen an obese Mennonite. One day, if not already, they might laugh at people who need leaf blowers and snow blowers, all kinds of power tools for gardening, a miniature tractor for lawn mowing, air conditioning and humidifiers, and lots of other electrical appliances in order to cope with daily chores. In Edmonton humidity is so low that I can watch my laundry dry. There’s no decent reason why clothes dryers are sold here at all – impatient people and money making are bad arguments. I always air dry the laundry and it helps humidify the air in our apartment. No big deal.

In Mexico black tanks are set on roofs of houses to provide hot water. This is a logical, very easy way to heat water. Meantime, in “developed” countries energy is produced in a power plant, usually in a dirtier way than through sunshine, and then transported to where the water needs to be heated. Consumers seem even happy to pay for this service and, as mentioned before, there’s little or no motivation to save energy because the biggest chunk of the bill is administration and distribution costs. Obviously, for places like Edmonton it will not work in winter but for the rest of the year - cheaper than solar panels.  Mexico is only an example, I am sure there are numerous other countries that use similarly simple methods for simple things. They should laugh at us too, or realistically, get mad at us for the pollution we cause by burning fossil fuels. It does not need to be, not at the current level anyway.