I was first made aware of this documentary back in early November as I was furiously procrastinating. It may be worthwhile to read the old post first before proceeding. It’s actually mildly funny.
So, it’s Friday night. What did I do? I watched this documentary on PBS. I also took notes. After I dug up my old post, I realized that my thoughts and perceptions are basically unaltered.
I’ll add that I hate documentaries for at least two reasons:
Reason 1: it’s 30-90 minutes or more of completely one sided information. This means that documentaries are only one step ahead of the State of the Union address because there aren’t frequent breaks where everyone stands up and applauds like good sheep.
Reason 2: The narrators, usually men, sound like they are someone’s mother. As soon as Is turned on the show, the following mental images appeared.
Well, class, it looks like Beavis and Butt-Head got a lot of signatures here. Let’s see: Hugh G. Rection, Ben Dover, Betty Humpter, Rosie Palm and her five sisters. Beavis and Butt-Head, couldn’t you boys get each sister to sign individually?
I dont like Vaginas
I don’t know if this is an artifact of performing for the audience, or if documentary film makers are just big pussies. I’m just saying I think I would respond better to a paternal-type narrator.
So, after having watched most of the movie (I missed the first few minutes)…
Like I said in my original post, I think the premise of the movie is good. By using less electricity overall, and by willingly using non-coal and non-nuclear power, we can use less coal and nuclear power.
And like most documentaries that I’ve seen, it comes of as being of the mental quality that you would expect from a high school student. You know what I mean because we’ve all written papers or reports or worked on projects where it became clear that finishing was far more important than being thorough or accurate.
Coal is cheap and readily available. Pollution can be a problem of course. Nuclear was briefly addressed. The film-maker visited one town near a plant in Georgia that was built at 1/2 capacity and still way over budget. Interesting. Why? Who knows and don’t look for the answer here. Nuclear of course is not by-product free. Instead of pollution, we have to deal with containment. Of course here, NIMBYism is a good thing because it keeps evil corporations from trying to build plants in “economically poor” areas and heaven forbid provide some jobs. Wind is becoming very attractive. There was no mention of the NIMBYism on the part of the likes of the Kennedys however.
What really bugged me though was the constant theme of “so-and-so-a-person did this-and-that and is saving $600 a year in power” or “so-and-so-a-company is saving so-many-dollars-a-year.”
But from what I noted, only once, ONCE were the savings compared to the costs. A school district invested in upgrading all its buildings and energy efficiency initiatives like turning off unused computers. Even though I bet they are glossing over extra costs from the IT department and whatnot, they are saving $1 million a year…. on a $24 million investment.
The film-maker himself and his wife, yes wife, Heather, even started spending money to save money. They bought “fluorethent lightth that have already paid for themthelveth.” I doubt he factored in the cost of disposing of bulbs that weren’t burned out. Plus they bought a used high-efficienty fridge for $200. Of course not everything can be bought used, and there was no indication as to why this fridge was available. I’d guess they started saving about $25 a month… before they opted to pay an extra $20 a month to ensure they were buying “green energy.” What a deal!
Green energy of course is wind and solar (no mention of a life-cycle analysis of solar technologies) and even methane from landfills. Hydro, did not seem to appear on the lists. It is not green enough apparently. I was surprised by the methane though. Why? Because we have to burn it, just like natural gas. Oh wait, natural gas is methane.
In brief summary, this film, like so many documentaries glosses over tough questions and contradicts itself repeatedly. But somewhere within it is a well-intentioned message.
I also want to comment on another point that I left out of this post.
At one point, they highlight the benefits of using the sun for its energy by simply letting sunlight in. Some school had added skylights and whatnot to get more sunlight in the classroom. The idea of course is that some money is saved paying for lighting. Also, one of the teachers talks about how great it is to have real light in the room.
What they leave out is the additional cooling costs that may be necessary by adding in the sunlight. Having attended schools with a lot of windows and no air conditioning, I’m familiar with how hot a classroom can get during a hot day in May.
What is also interesting, is that the teacher, without actually saying it, is complaining about the effect of fluorescent lights. The same kinds of lights that we’re supposed to be embracing because of their power savings. That’s a nice contradiction.