I had another one of those conversations with a guy at work the other day.  He is a nice techie (is there any other kind?) with a home full of Computers, Servers and Networking devices. We have often joked about the power required to run all of his gadgets. He admitted he was using an energy monitoring device from Efergy and he asked if I thought these were any good. I replied that they were useful for tracking down unknown power usage but if your were conscientious enough to buy one then you are probably thinking about what you can switch off anyway. People who don’t care about such problems will never even think to buy a Power monitor. Why should they? I asked him if he had considered the use of Bye Bye Standby to kill all power at the sockets.

We found these to be very useful devices. Although the makers advertise their Standby Saving features (and the fact the make you devices safe form bursting into flames) we have found further benefits. If you have a WiFi Router with no off switch then it is useful for killing that connection. This enhances your security and stops the signal from interfering with other wireless deices such as baby monitors. Secondly they are useful for killing the power on devices which your toddlers can reach. Our little-one loves switches and will just switch things on and off to see the little light come on. One victim of this is the washing machine which had its power plug buried under a work surface. One BBS unit took care of this.

Anyway, I digres..... It was my colleague's reply, to my suggestion, that caused the raised eyebrows. He said “Bottom line – will it save me money? That’s all I care about.” That’s all you care about? It seemed a fair assumption. But I found this conversation troubling for days afterwards. It reminded me of that line in Star Wars Hans Solo says “I am not in it for your cause I am in it for the money and I expect to be well rewarded.” It is odd to be sitting upon the brink of the most noble cause mankind has faced in 200 years and for someone to sniff and ask what it will cost them. Cost? What will it cost you NOT to change?

By the way - Do you know the difference between a Genius and a Mad Man? The Genius is a year ahead of his time. The Mad Man is five years ahead of his time.

Sure, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing will get you a certain distance. But to become truly evolved into the post-carbon phase… Well, you just need to become blind to short term cost. Since the future cost is so great anything you spend today seems trivial. Post Carbon Man does not discount his Future. We don’t discount our children. They are not disposable. We leave that kind of flat earth economics to the Economists, Politicians, Bjorn Lomborg and other fantasists. Meanwhile, in the real world….

Sure it might save you a few pennies here and there. But it might earn you a place in heaven. Funny how you can be so connected to the world and have absolutely no idea what is going on on this planet. 25 Televisions but no idea what is happening in the news. Is it denial or ignorance? My daughter is less than two years of age. When she puts her hands in front of her face to play peekaboo she thinks we can’t see her – and we play along. She’ll grow up. So must everyone else. Pretending it ain’t there is not a strategy. Not everything is an investment opportunity. And this is what sets carbon cutters aside. Whereas the EST and Government Departments keep on telling everyone that by saving energy that they will save money they may be leading everyone into a fools paradise. Accept it. It will cost you money. But it is an investment. It will cost you less money in future when oil/carbon prices are 200 times what they are today. But it is all a big secret. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. Let’s pretend we don’t know how the story ends. Just focus on short term financial gains and discount the future all the way to hell.

Until this society takes this bull firmly by the horns and admits, like a recovering alcoholic, that it is addicted and withdrawal will be painful, then we are never going to face up to what is about to happen. We’ll just put our hands in front of our faces and play peekaboo.

Which brings me to another conversation I had with a colleague a few days later. After discussing our plans for the weekend I admitted I would probably need some quality time with my pipe insulation in my loft, he proclaimed that he never goes into his loft. “I didn’t like it up there. I closed the hatch and never went back.” Oh dear. Who can blame him? However, how in all conscience can you live in a home with a loft and not know what is up there? Are you not just a little curious? Don’t you need the storage space? Don’t want to know where your heat goes?

Peekaboo.