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Comment by basisword | Hacker News Reader

My takeaway from this is that while you may not be able to save £x specific amount, you can make not completely insignificant savings in energy usage. While the claims aren't completely accurate it is probably a good thing for us to be more mindful of our usage.

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These are completely insignificant savings. The source aligns with a piece published this morning on the BBC which is very obviously a Govt encouraged piece attempting to push the critical failings from them (the Govt) on protecting the most vulnerable families from price gouging and speculation in the energy markets.

It's just a replay of the carbon footprint playbook.

This was my first thought when I saw that too. It's a hamfisted attempt to turn a systemic problem into a "a problem of personal responsibility".

Same way that companies that produce a lot of waste are weirdly keen on "everybody doing their bit" with recycling: https://www.treehugger.com/shell-oil-preaches-personal-respo...

Or the way that jaywalking was turned into a crime by the motor car companies: https://www.grunge.com/721704/the-truth-about-how-jaywalking...

Or the way poverty/homelessness is framed: https://www.marketplace.org/2012/10/05/personal-responsibili...

I do think there is something to be said for creating a culture of sustainability. The values then become reflected in a society’s laws. If we as a people have even just a baseline consideration of our waste and energy consumption, then it stands to reason we’ll apply pressure to the truly responsible parties over time.

It also helps remove personal politics from the equation if everyone already sort of agrees we should be mindful as a standard sentiment. The fact that we have folks whose identity is tied to pollution, to the point where we had people at rallies going “drill baby drill!” barely more than a decade ago, says a lot. Remember: the GOP created the EPA. They used to be more openly supportive of conservation.

The truly responsible parties love the fact that millions of Americans are going to bat for their “right” to trash and pollute our country.

I agree. In fact I'm insulted at the suggestion of £30 savings in YEAR, and I even live in a country where the purchasing power of £30 is much higher than in the UK.

On a societal level, once heating, industry, public services and transportation are accounted for, we consume around 500-1000W per person. Saving a few Watts per family is a rounding error. We're talking about the power output of a solar panel the size of an A4 paper

This is a failure of state's energy policy, trying to pass the blame on regular citizens

Especially true since costs such as carbon emissions aren't internalized yet into the electricity cost.

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