Letter writer: A 68/78 campaign would encourage energy savings

Graphic by Lori Deaton

Asheville, Buncombe County and Duke Energy are trying to encourage citizens to reduce their consumption of energy so the construction of a third Asheville gas-powered electric plant will not be necessary.

It seems to me that a 68/78 campaign — which encourages all citizens and businesses to set their thermostats at 68 in the winter and 78 in the summer — is the quickest solution to the problem of saving energy immediately and locally.

I am a senior, and I have been following this plan — as an environmentalist — since 1980. A 68/78 campaign could easily be started in government offices, schools and through Leadership Asheville. Compliance is, of course, voluntary; however, Asheville could make compliance fashionable and at the same time start a nationwide energy-saving trend.

As a country, we waste so much energy. Please consider this plan as a way personally to make a difference in the world — for the sake of the children.

— P. Diane Chambers
Asheville

SHARE

Thanks for reading through to the end…

We share your inclination to get the whole story. For the past 25 years, Xpress has been committed to in-depth, balanced reporting about the greater Asheville area. We want everyone to have access to our stories. That’s a big part of why we've never charged for the paper or put up a paywall.

We’re pretty sure that you know journalism faces big challenges these days. Advertising no longer pays the whole cost. Media outlets around the country are asking their readers to chip in. Xpress needs help, too. We hope you’ll consider signing up to be a member of Xpress. For as little as $5 a month — the cost of a craft beer or kombucha — you can help keep local journalism strong. It only takes a moment.

About Letters
We want to hear from you! Send your letters and commentary to letters@mountainx.com

Before you comment

The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.

25 thoughts on “Letter writer: A 68/78 campaign would encourage energy savings

  1. boatrocker

    64/72 for me as a compromise. I can always pile on layers in the wintertime, but I will not drown in a pool of my own sweat in the summer.
    Sometimes during the summer months I like hanging out in the frozen food aisle at the grocery store- that’s where I work my magic picking up the ladies.
    “Oh, I see you like tater tots too…”

    • boatrocker

      Wow, every once in a while I am floored reading stuff here.
      I’m assuming either
      1- you don’t have grandkids, or
      2- you just don’t care about anyone but yourself or
      3- that you did not know that most of our energy needs come from fossil fuels which are a finite resource.

      Could I at least challenge you to describe the world in say 200 years for us using fossil fuels to generate power at the current rate of consumption?
      How would that world look to you?

      • “1- you don’t have grandkids, ”

        Why would it matter what my familial makeup is? There would still be no reason to save energy whether I can ten grandkids or 100.

        “2- you just don’t care about anyone but yourself ”

        How would that matter? There would still be no reason to save energy no matter how many people I cared about.

        “3- that you did not know that most of our energy needs come from fossil fuels which are a finite resource.”

        Oil is not a finite resource. It is abiotic, plentiful and renewable. It has served us well and will do so long into the future.

        “How would that world look to you?”

        A lot like this one only with more oil. Although, the freedom to innovate may be hampered somewhat. Fossil fuel has provided the means for millions to survive the horrors nature has to offer. “Nature doesn’t give us a stable, safe climate that we make dangerous. It gives us an ever-changing, dangerous climate that we need to make safe. And the driver behind sturdy buildings, affordable heating and air-conditioning, drought relief and everything else that keeps us safe from climate is cheap, plentiful, reliable energy, overwhelmingly from fossil fuels.”
        http://bit.ly/2cuMZ0u

        Fossil Fuels: The Greenest Energy
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJWq1FeGpCw

        • boatrocker

          More oil? Renewable? Renewable in a few millions years perhaps.
          Again, wow. Abiotic?!? Really, I see definitions that call ‘abiotic’ not derived from living organisms.

          You did see the second “Airplane” movie (I hope) when a character is asked ‘what happened’?
          (paraphrased) -The dinosaurs got too big and died and turned to oil, then the Arabs came and found the oil and bought Mercedes Benzs, or something like that.

          Your post is Koyaanisqatsi in a nutshell.

          • Negrodamus

            Abiotic oil. Not as farfetched as you might think. Makes a lot of sense.

  2. boatrocker

    Peck, Negrodamus, please enlighten us as to this abiotic oil idea.
    In your own words- ha ha what am I thinking. just post a link to a FAUX news- approved website.

    • Negrodamus

      Try Google and an open mind. Of course, if you don’t have a technical background and sold cars for a living, it may not do you much good. In that case I’m sure CNN will tell you what to believe.

  3. boatrocker

    Okee dokee negrodamus, I checked out a ‘study’ from 2009 that nobody has heard of except for the ‘rest of us fools who just don’t know’. It was written in the style of the sponsored ads you see for things that will AMAZE you and make your JAW DROP!.

    2 ‘theories’, one by Thomas Gold and one called the deep abiotic petroleum process, according to every other site I visited have been ‘scientifically discredited and are obsolete’. Hmmmm.

    Really? did you actually believe oil just comes up from the ground like a bumblin’ crude and originates in magma?
    i’ll say it yet again- wow.

    Are you going to tell me that chemtrails are real and aliens built the pyramids next?
    Thanks for wasting my time for me taking 10 minutes I’ll never get back to confirm abiotic oil is a crock.

    Technical background, yeah, that’s the ticket? Turning lead into gold I presume?
    Come to think of it, a used car salesman would try the ol abiotic oil trick to justify a gas guzzler. Did it work every time?

    • Negrodamus

      Ha funny stuff. In this particular topic, you definitely are caught up in the matrix.

      Hydrocarbons may be biotic in origin (an unproven theory), but they definitely are abiotic in origin as proven by NASA’s discovery of vast lakes of hydrocarbons on one of Saturn’s moons. They also exist in deep space (Orion nebula). I doubt dinosaurs roamed much in either of those places.

      From what I’ve read, the Russians consider the biotic theory of oil to be junk science and have producing fields in crystalline basements.

      Richard Heinberg, a key proponent of the abiotic oil theory, said in “The Abiotic Oil Controversy”:

      “Perhaps one day there will be general agreement that at least some oil is indeed abiotic. Maybe there are indeed deep methane belts twenty miles below the Earth’s surface.”

      Study on…

      • Negrodamus

        Sorry. The Horse Head Nebula in the Orion constellation, not the Orion nebula.

      • Negrodamus

        “Hydrocarbons may be biotic in origin (an unproven theory), but they definitely are abiotic in origin” should read “Oil may be biotic in origin (an unproven theory), but hydrocarbons can definitely be abiotic in origin”.

      • boatrocker

        Funny how the right suddenly gloms onto science in all its beauty about free renewable never ending oil,
        yet lags a bit behind for climate science, evolution and certain candidates who espouse proven medical falsehoods about fetuses.

        “And then one day Jed was shootin at some food, and up through the ground came a bumblin crude.
        Oil, that is, black gold, Texas tea.”

        Again, I have found more accredited sources that claim that as bunk, but that’s probably just the li’bral media trying to brainwash me
        into submission, as I’ve never heard of checking sources against each other for veracity.

        • Virginia Daffron

          Boatrocker, I always heard that as “up through the ground come a bubblin’ crude.”

          I recognize this is perhaps not at the heart of the point you are making.

          • Virginia Daffron

            At least it wasn’t the crude that was bumblin’, ’cause that would be weird. And it would force me to reprogram all of my childhood memories of that show (of which there are many).

  4. Negrodamus

    “The eleven major and one giant oil and gas fields
    here described have been discovered in a region which
    had, forty years ago, been condemned as possessing no
    potential for petroleum production. The exploration
    for these fields was conducted entirely according to
    the perspective of the modern Russian-Ukrainian
    theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins. The
    drilling which resulted in these discoveries was
    extended purposely deep into the crystalline basement
    rock, and it is in that basement where the greatest
    part of the reserves exist. These reserves amount to
    at least 8,200M metric tons of recoverable oil and
    100B cubic meters of recoverable gas, and are thereby
    comparable to those of the North Slope of Alaska. It
    is conservatively estimated that, when developed,
    these fields will provide approximately thirty
    percent of the energy needs of the industrial nation
    of Ukraine.”

    Professor Vladilen A. Krayushkin, Chairman of the
    Department of Petroleum Exploration, Institute of
    Geological Sciences, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences,
    Kiev, and leader of the project for the exploration
    of the northern flank of the Dnieper-Donets Basin, at
    the VII-th International Symposium on the Observation
    of the Continental Crust Through Drilling, Santa Fe,
    New Mexico, 1994.

  5. Negrodamus

    “The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic
    petroleum origins is not controversial nor presently
    a matter of academic debate. The period of debate
    about this extensive body of knowledge has been over
    for approximately two decades (Simakov 1986). The
    modern theory is presently applied extensively
    throughout the former U.S.S.R. as the guiding
    perspective for petroleum exploration and development
    projects. There are presently more than 80 oil and
    gas fields in the Caspian district alone which were
    explored and developed by applying the perspective of
    the modern theory and which produce from the
    crystalline basement rock.(Krayushkin, Chebanenko et
    al. 1994) Similarly, such exploration in the western
    Siberia cratonic-rift sedimentary basin has developed
    90 petroleum fields of which 80 produce either partly
    or entirely from the crystalline basement. The
    exploration and discoveries of the 11 major and 1
    giant fields on the northern flank of the Dneiper-
    Donets basin have already been noted. ”

    http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.econ/2004-08/0126.html

Leave a Reply

To leave a reply you may Login with your Mountain Xpress account, connect socially or enter your name and e-mail. Your e-mail address will not be published. All fields are required.