The Psychology of Climate Change: Why US Electricity Consumption Is So High - Research Paper Example

Why U.S. electricity consumption is so high? Many people can narrate at least few things they can undertake in order to take care of the climate change, but they aren’t. Despite so much media attention, messages about the climate change and how individuals need to do to help prevent it seems to fall in deaf ears. Theories evolve about people being aware of climate change which does not inspire the kind of behavior changes that it should. Research shows that for climate science information to be fully absorbed by the spectators it need be actively conversed with suitable language, symbol and similarity combined with chronicle storytelling according to Leiserowitz (15). The degree to which energy demand in a given country might be sensitive to the climatic changes will depend both on its climate type and the economic development level. Energy demand shows a significant elasticity to temperature changes and this will have a different impact on the demand for electricity according the regional distribution. According to Hu and Zheng, if a climate which is warmer will be at a higher altitude, it will reduce space heating and hence fuel consumption while at lower altitude, cooling will increase with higher temperatures. Meaning that global warming will increase electricity demand but overall energy use could decrease instead (77). In a study that was carried out in 2002, it was estimated that by that year there was benefits of climate change in the energy sector. The impact on electricity demand depends on resources used for heating and cooling. According to Hu and Zeng, cooling systems such as air conditioning need more energy than similar amount of heating. If there doesn’t exist other heating options, then it can only be powered with electricity. Also, if there is a correlation between electricity consumption and summer temperatures, an increase in temperature is associated with an increase in electricity consumption (55). Furthermore, the costs of warming temperatures on the demand for power consumption is crystal clear in upcoming and developing nations striving to increase their living standards as well as GDP per capita. The combination of these factors like geographic variability, seasonal variability, fuel-use variability and income variability are essential in understanding the correlation between climate and higher electricity demand. The U.S faces the above challenges and they in turn tend to use high electricity. This is due to the winter periods where they have to use the water heating systems to keep them warm, these are the resources that use high amount of energy. Additionally, during the summer times, people also want to cool their place of living work and many other places which also use high amount of electricity. We don’t only mean that they are the only state which does the cooling and heating depending on the climate, but due to their large population, they tend to use more compared to nations like Canada, Japan, Brazil and even Australia. United States is often criticized for vastly using large amount of the world’s energy relative to its population. According to Doyle, the U.S consumes 25% of the world’s total energy which is 5% less as compared to that of the world’s total population (101). Partly, the reason for this consumption is because the U.S industry produce inequality of goods and services in the world. Many of these goods are exported to many parts of the world and many of them such as medicine, food are necessary for human survival of world’s populace good portion. This only accounts for small portion of the disproportionate consumption of energy. Macknick states that many countries would put blame on the businesses that U.S do for this disproportionate consumption of energy. But businesses have a strong conservation of energy incentive (25). That incentive is the bottom line and how profitable the business is if it can stay in business. With an economy which is booming, vast profits overwhelm the costs that are associated with energy so that these costs may not be perceived by all but most profit conscious firms. In thin times, as the ones that we have been going through, and firms strive in cost minimization possible therefore reducing the millions of dollars spent by a firm each year on energy can’t be ignored. Societies will be quick to point out many examples of U.S businesses that seem not to be concerned about their consumption of energy. Media Long time ago, people used books, then there came the newspapers, magazines and photography, films, sound recording, televisions and radios but it has come now to media of the internet and now the social media. According to Dooley, we need to beware about the values we hold as citizens, the decisions we make and the beliefs we harbor are just assumptions and our own experiences and our education which we take for a fact not knowing that they can also be deceptive (30). Because getting information via media must use power or gadgets that use electricity, it has influenced many folks on how they think about energy consumption. For someone to be updated, he or she must be connected with power something which make folks seeing no need for the conservation of energy since they will miss out as O’neil stipulates (45). Culture O’neil argues that we are human beings and so by living in different places and the environment, we get to learn different things which are dependent on places we live (45). Learning on how we live is majorly influenced by societies and this influences energy consumption per capita. Culture is full range of learning patterns of human behavior amongst the social groups. How one lives is dependent on his/her culture. According to Dooley, ideologies are belief systems and set of ideas that establishes one’s goals and actions. Energy usage or consumption is affected depending on a society ideology. For example, United States citizens frequently object to hydropower projects simply because they disrupt stream flow, which is of great spiritual significance to Native American culture (67). Homely individuals feeling for individuals of a given society influence on how buildings are constructed and how energy is consumed which is a facet of culture. Hawaiians are comfortable and are used to cold weather and their homes use single wall construction and thus not concerned with heat loss. In japan, domestic space heating and cooling still faces widespread resistance. They heat the space under a dinner table which is sunken and trapped the heat with a cloth around the table edge. They are very comfortable this way. According to Bent, due to economies of scale, a large family living in a house together consumes less energy compared to a small family. In the United States, the decline in household size and the increasing number of singles having to stay alone they make energy consumption rise (55). American culture states that materialism, a belief which says that material possession can bring about personal happiness, exists here. These are the electrical appliance which in turn leads to more power consumption. U.s citizens prefer single living. Hypotenuse states that, every increase in availability of energy or power, leads to standard of leaving improvement. According to Dooley, for many past centuries, the only immediate sources of energy were humans and the animal muscle which in today world has become steam engine and nuclear energy (90). However, as there is availability of more energy, goods yields and services per a unit of energy was declining steeply as the world became more diverse culturally. The natural law states that every increase in the energy available leads to a decline in the human living standards. Political and economic issues Bent states that energy markets are still strong which are interwoven by political and economic decisions (27). For instance, when we look at France, in 1970s oil crisis, the political leaders advocated for the adoption of nuclear energy as a way of maintaining a higher level of security supply. This strategic approach predicted over 91% of electricity generated in France region is currently derived from the nuclear power plants while more than a half of overall energy production in another region is also nuclear based. As a result, these regions are now self-reliant in terms of electricity supply. According to O’neil, we can see that despite some people and parties being at the forefront of the anti-nuclear, political leaders influenced the thinking of some individuals which in turn made the country benefit much in the production of energy (92). So, political view had an advantage of the energy and the people of France. Geographical and climatic change The relationship between weather and electricity demand in the U.S has been studied due to the increase in the demand of energy, regulation and also the pricing models. According to Bent, it is shown that electricity consumption in current society is highly dependent on climatic and geographical characteristics (70). For example, the average annual air temperature and the territory effective. Where and how one lives affects how much energy we consume. This information tends to make people misuse energy since it has clicked into their minds that their region needs more power and maybe at times they can conserve it. Goldstein and smith claim that there is still the main reason why the U.S uses much more energy per capita than other nations in the world is because the people living here honestly don’t care about their consumption of energy (18). Almost any American will reply, if asked, that he/she is very concerned about energy consumption. Most of them do complain about gas prices and their electric bills, but few will consider doing something about it. Therefore, it implies that the manufacturers and producers of low quality products would greatly resist increased energy consumption through use of electric tools which helps loads so that those of us who don’t need the features that these idle currents support can completely turn off the product. According to me, most Americans don’t care about the conservation of energy and majority of citizens view the issue of climate change as significantly huge problem, hence, they view climate change as in temporally distant terms and geographically. Most of them don’t personally experience effects which are drastic enough on regular basis so as to alarm them for climate change. Conclusion According to me, for change to individuals to take place, the audience should be known their attention and also the scientific research data should be made a reality in life. The research companies should address scientific and climate uncertainties to the people of America and tap into social identities and affiliation, not to leave out on how people participate in groups. The behavior change of individuals should be easier by understanding default effects on decision making and how to optimize the default option. This will help the country control and manage the consumption of energy and individuals know that climate change is not only geographical but can affect anyone. Works Cited Adaptive-Network-Based Fuzzy Inference System for Long-Term Electric Consumption Forecasting (2008-2015): A Case Study of the Group of Seven (G7) Industrialized Countries: U.S.A., Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, France and Italy,2010. Brendan Dooley – Perspectives on the Power to Work, 2006 Energy Consumption: Federal Agencies' Electricity Use and Cost. Washington, D.C: The Office, 1997. Media Print. Goldstein, R, and W Smith. Water & Sustainability (volume 4): U.s. Energy Consumption for Water Supply & Treatment - the Next Half Century. Palo Alto, Calif: Electric Power Research Institute, 2002. Print. Hu, Zhaoguang, and Zheng Hu. Electricity Economics: Production Functions with Power. , 2013. Leiserowitz, A.) American opinions on global heating. A Yale University/Gallup/Clear Vision Institution Poll. New Port, CT: Environmental Studies & Yale Forestry school. (2007) Lifestyle factors in U.S. residential electricity consumption Thomas F. Sanquist, Heather M. Orr, Bin Shui, Alvah C. Bittner Journal: Energy Policy 2012 DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.11.092 Macknick, Jordan. A Review of Operational Water Consumption and Withdrawal Factors for Electricity Generating Tools. Golden, State Renewable Energy Laboratory (Workshop), 2011. R. D. Bent - Energy: Science, Policy, and the pursuit of sustainability, 2002 U.S. commercial electricity consumption Sergio Contreras, Wm. Doyle Smith, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr.2010 Read More