Recently, our apartment complex had a week-long power outage due to some technical fault in the main line. In those seven days I saw our happily bustling community regressing to the 80s era.
This fast time travel was brought about by
the going off of the home appliances. I am sure those who had switched to
induction stoves were thrown to the times of caveman. Four days on, the
persistent power outage started taking a toll on the water pumping system and
the taps started going dry, and down slipped the already deteriorating quality
of life. The faltering diesel generator back up placed the people living on
upper storey almost under house arrest. Eventually, due to costs overrun, as
the gensets were switched off, we felt almost cut off from the 21st
century world, for it rendered the
internet modems and in turn, the smartphones useless. Now, the only bridge to
the outer world was our automobiles!
After seven days of nightmare, as the power
supply was restored, and as I went through the scathing mails shot in the
community mail forum by the irate residents, I was bemused by realisation of
the very basis of our happy, individualistic, independent life – the energy. I
know that the appliances and gadgets were invented to save our time and (muscular)
energy but I had not realised that we needed external supply of energy to spend
the conserved time and energy as well. Now that’s called as development (I
prefer to use the term energy-addiction).
Going by the current weather trend a bigger
energy crisis is lurking around the corner. We have made enough noise to get
the governments work on energy supply side management but have we ever delved into our lifestyles deep enough to understand
how we, as consumers, can manage the demand side of energy at least for the
sake of energy security of our future generation, if not for environmental
protection?
On this note, I would like to know
different practices to conserve (electrical) energy and yet lead a comfortable
life in the 21st century. I
would also like to call on the readers to revive the memories of childhood and
come up with recreational activities to spend all the time we save and energy
we conserve by using various gadgets.
--Meera
Samuchit Enviro Tech. samuchit@samuchit.com www.samuchit.com
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