{"id":644422,"date":"2013-02-27T22:24:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T03:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/?p=70160"},"modified":"2013-02-27T22:24:44","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T03:24:44","slug":"the-psychology-of-saving-energy-alex-laskey-at-ted2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/644422","title":{"rendered":"The psychology of saving energy: Alex Laskey at TED2013"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/p>\n

Photo: James Duncan Davidson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Have you checked your email today? Your finances? What about your energy use? Alex Laskey thinks that with just a shift in attitude toward our energy use, we can all save a lot.<\/p>\n

Laskey introduces an experiment he ran with his team at Opower<\/a>. People received one of three different messages on their doors about why they should try to save energy:<\/p>\n

– You can save $54 this month
\n– You can save the planet
\nor
\n– You can be a good citizen<\/p>\n

Which one won? None. No one message showed a marked difference. So Opower added a fourth message: Your neighbors are doing better than you.<\/p>\n

That one worked. The locals who heard the message that 77% of their neighbors turned down their A\/C, Also turned down their AC, creating a marked difference in energy consumption. As Laskey says, “If something is inconvenient, even if we believe it, persuasion won’t work. But social pressure? That’s powerful stuff.”<\/p>\n

Every year in the U.S. alone $40 billion of energy is wasted. Laskey projects that by thinking not just about material sciences but about behavioral sciences, we could save 2 terawatts a year — more than enough energy to power every home in St. Louis and Salt Lake City for more than a year.<\/p>\n

We can be doing so much better, says Laskey, starting by tapping into the power of social behavior.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Have you checked your email today? Your finances? What about your energy use? Alex Laskey thinks that with just a shift in attitude toward our energy use, we can all save a lot. Laskey introduces an experiment he ran with his team at Opower. People received one of three different messages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7441,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-644422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}