I’m indebted to Steve Price of the European Institute for Industrial Leadership for the comments he sent me last week, in response to the symbolic “Lights out across Europe” gesture on 1 February. If you missed that, a group of environmental associations called the “Alliance pour la Planete” asked citizens to give the planet “five minutes respite” by turning off lights and other equipment from 7.55pm to 8pm - not just to save 5 minutes’ electricity consumption, but to draw attention to how much (possibly unnecessary) energy is being used at any one time.

Steve says congratulations to the instigators if the gesture helped to remind the general public that all our lifestyle choices contribute to global warming. But he adds that while the demand for electricity may have dropped a few symbolic Watts, electricity grid controllers will have been unable in most cases to have given the earth its intended ‘five minutes respite’ and will have had to keep most of the efficient generating plant on standby ready for the instantaneous response required at the end of the five minutes.

He continues: “Neither protestors nor politicians are asking us seriously to consider changing our consumerist, gadget-rich lifestyle. And neither can we expect them to. So what real behaviour change are we prepared to undertake? A first step would be to address the increasing levels of technological ignorance which caused so many people to believe that they were actually giving the planet a five-minute respite.”

In the twenty years it takes to grow a marketing or media expert to persuade us to consume with such proliferation, Steve says, we could have grown and educated a young engineer or scientist capable of identifying and implementing the product and manufacturing process innovations which would allow us to enjoy our consumer lifestyle benefits but with a decreasing impact on the planet’s natural resource reserves. He says to the participants in the February 1 protest to take the first steps on a longer journey: “Turn off your lights, use energy efficiently, but also confront your own technophobia. Look to your youngsters and think about the influences you provide that affect their career choices and think: the technological advances we need to save the planet may be in their hands; if we only point them in the right direction.”
This comment was originally published in the Engineeringtalk Newsletter