{"id":4497,"date":"2010-12-14T18:50:06","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T01:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=4497"},"modified":"2010-12-14T18:50:06","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T01:50:06","slug":"policy-innovations-the-paradox-of-efficiency-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=4497","title":{"rendered":"Policy Innovations | The paradox of efficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/policy-innovators.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4503\" title=\"policy innovators\" src=\"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/policy-innovators-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/policy-innovators-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/policy-innovators.jpg 352w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Several thousand officials from 194 countries just gathered in  Canc\u00fan, Mexico, for yet another global climate summit. Dissatisfied with  the pace of climate diplomacy, many individuals are now wondering what  they can do about climate change on their own.<\/p>\n<p>For years now, climate activists from Al Gore to Leonardo DiCaprio  have argued that individual actions like driving more economical cars  and using more efficient light bulbs are a crucial element in the effort  to address global warming. The United Nations&#8217; climate panel and the  International Energy Agency both echo this sentiment, insisting that  higher energy efficiency could reduce energy consumption by up to 30  percent\u2014making improved efficiency an effective remedy for climate  change. But is this really true?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s something to think about. Back in the early 1970s, the average  American expended roughly 70 million British thermal units per year to  heat, cool, and power his or her home. Since then, of course, we have  made great strides in energy efficiency. As the <em>Washington Post<\/em> recently reported, dishwashers now use 45 percent less power than they  did two decades ago, and refrigerators 51 percent less. So how much  energy do Americans use in their homes today? On a <em>per capita<\/em> basis, the figure is roughly what it was 40 years ago: 70 million BTUs.<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article at Policy Innovations: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.policyinnovations.org\/ideas\/commentary\/data\/000205\" target=\"_blank\">The Paradox of Efficiency<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several thousand officials from 194 countries just gathered in Canc\u00fan, Mexico, for yet another global climate summit. Dissatisfied with the pace of climate diplomacy, many individuals are now wondering what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":4503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[42,45],"class_list":["post-4497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-more-articles","tag-climate-action","tag-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4497"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4507,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497\/revisions\/4507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}