I'm fairly sure audio books weren't
intended to be talked back to, but I couldn't help myself recently
while listening to Mike Huckabee's A Simple Government. The man had
plenty of commonsense things to say, but one comment really set me
off: Mr. Huckabee is in favor of Smart Meters.
Are you familiar with Smart Meters?
They're an “upgraded” version of your gas/electric meters that
monitor the energy your home consumes and provide constant, specific
feedback to the provider company about what you're using and when.
Supposedly, they have many wonderful uses such as allowing cost
differentials in your bill (based on whether you use energy at peak
or off times) and generating reports on what appliance upgrades will
give you the biggest bang for your buck (by assessing which ones run
most often and create the biggest power drains).
Of course, anyone with an innate
tendency towards skepticism or *ahem * subversion might be quick to
point out that they are also programmed with capability to interface
with the new “Smart Appliances” - to the extent that your power
company (or other powers that be) can selectively turn off or cut
off any appliances in your house that they feel are drawing too
much power or being run too often. I'm sure I don't need to get into
why that is not something most of us would cheerily sign up
for on purpose. (Oh yeah - they may expose your family to unsafely high levels of radiation too.)
But, all ranting about the value of
Smart Meters aside, what irked me most about Mr. Huckabee's support
of the idea was that he'd just finished talking about how things like
rising crime rates, falling literacy levels and the seriously
precarious state of Americans' health were all family problems. We
don't need new social service regimes or psychologically overhauled
criminal justice procedures – we need to fix the family issues at
the root of the problem! I completely agree with that assertion,
which is why I'm baffled that he misses the same point when it's made
in a different (but related) context.
Excessive energy usage is a family
problem too.
There are abundant
studies proving what should be common sense: every time a family
fragments into divided homes, national energy consumption increases.
Every person that lives alone, running their own heat, appliances,
etc. is doubling the amount of energy needed over what would be
required if they shared a home with their family.
Every
family in which both parents work because they don't feel they can
afford to live on one income almost automatically is forced to run
numerous appliances at peak hours – because that's the
only time they're home! They
can't choose to run laundry in the middle of the morning, because
everyone's at work. They can't choose to save money by hanging
clothes on the line to dry because they don't get home until after
dark and have to be out before the sun is up the next day. (Or
because their HOA doesn't allow clotheslines, but that's a whole
story unto itself.)
The
most ironic part of this whole subject? Americans used to
have Smart Meters. They were called Housewives.
Women who were able to plan their days around what needed to be done
at home were able to run laundry while the kids were in school (and
hang it on the line to dry). Their households were able to
accommodate live-in grandparents or single relatives. Guess what?
They could carpool, make food from scratch and engage in a bunch of
other “green”, “socially responsible” and “health
conscious” lifestyle choices too! (In fact, some modern housewives are already getting plenty of press for doing just that!)
Am I saying every
family must have a stay- at- home wife/mother? No.
Do I think it's
foolish to praise such limited, potentially dangerous technology when there is an obvious and multi-beneficial
alternative readily available to tackle multiple major concerns in
one fell swoop? You bet.
What do you think?
Could housewives be the secret weapon of the next Green Movement?
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