Just prior to Sept 11, 2001, President GW Bush was considering a statement about reducing electricity “vampires”, all the little chargers and small-drain devices unused sitting in live outlets and power strips. Thanks in part to OBL, we got seriously distracted. Energy consumption can be nudged in small and big ways with only a trivial impact in “satisfaction”, though your media device manufacturers will be to blame for a bunch of apparent discomforts. Just takes being slightly mindful and giving a small care, which is way too much for most Americans. So jacking the price of energy up til it hurts is probably the only way to reduce usage.
"Americans' greatest contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions comes from transportation, mostly from cars and trucks, according to the federal government."<p>Consent status: manufactured. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-defense-department-is-worried-about-climate-change-and-also-a-huge-carbon-emitter-118017" rel="nofollow">https://theconversation.com/the-defense-department-is-worrie...</a>
This is similar to those factoids that say "if everyone on the planet had the current American quality of life" we'd need 7 planet earths worth of resources.<p>The implication is it's impossible, and people start looking for reasons to genocide the non-americans.<p>The real takeaway should be that American lifestyles are often burning obscene amounts of energy just to make them miserable. (e.g. if you're stress eating and putting on weight that takes more energy than growing/eating what your doctor would recommend as a healthy diet, or burning coal that causes air pollution related heath issues) and that there's societies that are happier, healthier and wealthier because wasting energy isn't seen as a virtue.