Sustainable Energy Consumption and Society: Personal, Technological, or Social Change?

ISBN-13: 9781402030864 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 206 str.

David L. Goldblatt

Opis

Origin of this book In 1998 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) initiated the 2000 Watt Society, a University-wide research program meant to help Switzerland realize a dramatic reduction in its future energy use. A project within the initiative Sustainability in the ETH domain, the 2000 Watt per capita Society sought to promote the gradual introduction of a way of living and working that requires only one-third of current energy consumption but 1 2 still delivers an improved quality of life. Two thousand watts is roughly the current world average per capita energy consumption; it was the average level in Switzerland in the 1950s; it is some three times less than current 3 Swiss usage; and reducing to that level again (in concert with other industrialized nations) would greatly facilitate stabilization of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO )levels in the long-term, given projections about world 2 population growth and exploitable energy resources Imboden 1999]. 1 http: //www. novatlantis. ch/frames_e. html. 2 A watt is a power term equivalent to 1 joule/second. Non-engineers generally prefer to think of 2000 watts per capita in terms of energy use per unit time such as joules/second or kilowatt-hours/hour. For Switzerland, 2000 watts per capita is equivalent to a primary annual energy consumption of about 65 gigajoules (65 billion joules) per capita. Although less generally communicative, the 2000 watt name is clean and trim, and since it has stuck we will use it throughout the book."

Spis treści

List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Preface Acknowledgments 1: Sustainable Consumption And The Public’s Room To Maneuver In Energy Use 1. Introduction 2. The consumer society 3. Consumption trajectories in Western Europe 4. North-South disparities, Northern consumerist models, and global resource constraints 5. The evolving international discourse on sustainable consumption 6. Consumption or production: Which is the better focus for addressing environmental problems? 7. Room to maneuver in energy use 7.1 Northern society’s discretion in energy use 7.2 Individuals’ discretion 8. Research questions and challenges in this book 2: Targets Of Intervention For Sustainable Consumption 1. Introduction 2. Efficiencies, patterns, and levels of consumption 2.1 Patterns of consumption 2.2 Efficiency and dematerialization 2.3 Levels of consumption 3. An expanded multi-disciplinary analysis of consumption’s driving forces and possibilities for intervention 3.1 Consumption critiques 3.2 Psychological and behavioral treatments 3.3 Social treatments 3.4 Economic treatments 4. Conclusion: Policy syntheses and political implications 4.1 Altering consumption: top-down or bottom-up? 4.2 Political implications and alternatives 3: Energy, Environment, And Society: Knowledge And Risk Communication 1. Introduction 2. Alternative research approaches and a frame for discussing knowledge in the context of discretionary and non-discretionary energy consumption 2.1 Introduction: Two approaches and two constructs 2.2 Selected topics in the Energy-Revealing approach and actors’ discretionary energy consumption 2.3 The Social-Revealing approach and less discretionary influences on energy consumption 3. Energy and risk communication 3.1 Public communication 3.2 Risk communication 4. Final comments and furtherapplications 4: Field Study With Computer-Aided Interviews 1. Introduction 2. Experimental hypotheses and user questions 3. Software development and modeling 3.1 Original version of the Personal ECO2-Calculator 3.2 Interview version of the Personal ECO2-Calculator 4. Interviewee recruitment 5. Interview description and guideline 6. Data capture, storage, and analysis means 7. Subjects’ biographical profiles 8. Results 8.1 Subject groups 8.2 Terms and comments 8.3 Hypotheses A and B: Freedom of Choice and Capability 8.4 Hypotheses C, D, and E: Non-discretionary accounting, Perception of less discretionary influences, and Communicating about Energy Consumption 8.5 Hypothesis H: Separation of social from technological influences 8.6 Hypothesis G: Cross-temporal and cross-cultural comparisons 8.7 Consumer-citizen involvement in affecting less-discretionary forces 8.8 Energy Communication 8.9 Subjects’ evaluation of the program and the interview session 5: Achievements, Open Questions, And Lessons Learned 1. Which questions have been answered? 1.1 Top-down or bottom-up? 1.2 Metric for gauging experimental success 1.3 Success in researching and applying domestic sustainable consumption 1.4 Pedagogical use and timing 2. Lifestyle groups and differentiated approaches to sustainable consumption 3. Personal responsibility 4. Success in risk communication 5. Suggestions for further research 6. Some open questions 7. Divergence from the prevailing environmental framework References Index

O autorze

David L. Goldblatt was awarded the 2003 ETH Medal for Outstanding Doctoral Work. He is currently a science and Technology Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.