Editor's Note: This is a recurring feature in which comedian and admitted horrible person Alex Blagg documents his attempts at becoming a slightly better individual.
I am comforted by the gentle hum of electricity flowing all around me. My life is filled with gadgets, gizmos, electronics and appliances. I will buy pretty much anything with a plug if I suspect it will make my life even slightly easier or more entertaining.
For me, “relaxing” consists of checking Facebook on my iPhone while aimlessly surfing the Internet on my laptop as I half-watch DVR’d shows on my giant flatscreen TV, all in a climate-controlled environment that is also very well-lit. (I hate darkness. My apartment basically looks like the Griswold house at Christmastime, all the time.) Then maybe I’ll take a nice hot shower before throwing all my dirty dishes into the robotic cleaning drawer, pressing the “wash” button, heading to bed, and leaving on a nightlight.
I guess I’m also one of those people who doesn’t think too much about how this techno lifestyle is powered, or where all that electricity comes from. The plugs in my walls might as well be pig snout-shaped portals to a source of infinite magic that only requires me to thoughtlessly pay a "utility bill" once a month in exchange for all the power I could ever want or need.
This is all to say that I think I might be “energy inefficient.”
The Problem With This:
Turns out that my electricity is neither magic nor infinite. It’s actually just energy produced at power plants using various fuels.
Using this tool at the EPA website, I discovered that the fuel mix used to produce the energy I consume here in Los Angeles breaks down to about 42 percent gas, 17 percent hydro, 16 percent nuclear, 12 percent coal, 9 percent renewable, and 1 percent oil.
Now I’m no Al Gore, but I do know that the production of energy causes a chain reaction that goes something like this: burning fuels —> carbon emissions —> air pollution —> greenhouse gasses —> climate change —> APOCALYPSE.
Okay, so that might be a bit hyperbolic, but we all get the point—we need to limit our consumption of energy, especially in America. Did you know that even though we only make up 5 percent of the world’s population, Americans are responsible for 25 percent of global energy consumption? And of the total energy consumed in America, about 39 percent is used to generate electricity.
So basically my “relaxing time” is using up all the energy in the world. How can I relax knowing that?
How I Tried to Be Better:
For one week, I committed to the following:
— Keep the lights off at all times
— No TV or video games
— One two-hour phone charge per day (and only to make/take calls)
— Only one hour of computer usage per day
— No heat or air conditioning
— Keep the showers short and cool
— Wash and dry laundry and dishes manually
Findings and Observations:
— Keeping the lights off was fun at first, as doing stuff by candlelight made me feel cool and old-timey. However, as the week wore on, and after several stubbed toes, I learned to more deeply appreciate the illuminating power I had been taking for granted.
— Speaking of feeling old-timey, washing your clothes by hand is the worst! I didn’t happen to have a “washboard” handy, and not wanting to waste my hour of computer usage on Google-searches for self-laundering tips, I just threw my clothes in the bathtub with some detergent and tried to swirl them around real fast in like a manual spin cycle, then rinse them off and hang them up. They took forever to dry, then ended up feeling and smelling weird.
— As I’ve already had some experience with speed-showering, this part of the challenge was pretty easy, though it was freezing in L.A. all week; so I certainly missed my steaming hot sauna-showers.
— Not using the heat during these arctic L.A. temperatures was also kind of a bummer, but it actually gave me a chance to pull out all my real winter clothes from back when I lived in New York City. I was so excited about remembering how great I look in sweaters and layers that I entirely forgot about the toasty-but-wasteful convenience of my heaters.
— Removing the TV/smartphone/laptop screens from my life was probably the hardest thing for me, but ultimately the most satisfying (even outside of the energy-saving aspects). By unplugging myself from these distractions, once I got through the initial withdrawl (oh no, what are they singing on Glee!?), I started doing crazy stuff like reading, writing, and talking to my loved ones. All of which turned out to be pretty fun things!
Conclusion:
Most of the measures I took were drastic and impractical. The fact is, even if you’re not a gluttonous energy-hog like I am, trying to avoid the use of electricity entirely is not really a sustainable life choice. More practical steps would be investing in energy-efficient light bulbs, appliances, and electronics—and of course being more conscious of the energy and electricity you ARE using.
Because you know what’s really relaxing? Not feeling like you’re single-handedly destroying the Earth.
Alex Blagg is a writer and comedian in Los Angeles. Most recently he created the satirical website BajillionHits.Biz, for which The Daily Beast called him the "Stephen Colbert of New Media." Prior to that, he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of MSN's Wonderwall.com, won two Webby Awards for his work running Vh1's "Best Week Ever" blog, and was included in The Huffington Post's list of "50 Funny People You Should Be Following On Twitter." He is truly a horrible person.
Quick Study: Energy Efficiency
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