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Energy Use The Human Dimension (1984) / Chapter Skim
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7: Local Energy Action
Pages 161-181

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From page 161...
... . Our committee was drawn to examine these local energy actions because of our interest in social processes and institutions between the levels of individual decisions and of federal policies and programs.
From page 162...
... We refer to this collection of phenomena as "local energy action;" we define it as collective action at the local level to meet local needs for energy services. Energy services -- that is, heating and cooling, mobility, industrial processes, and so forth -- can be provided by any combination of conventional fuels, renewable energy resources, and energy-efficient technology.
From page 163...
... with a proposal to and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.
From page 164...
... HOW MUCH CAN LOCAL ENERGY ACTION ACCOMPLISH? Although thousands of communities have taken action to improve their energy situations, local action has never been a major concern in national energy policy debates.
From page 165...
... Local energy action is a way to make the national energy system more stable and resilient in the face of rapid changes in world energy conditions. We noted in Chapter 6 that diversity in the national energy supply and distribution system makes it less vulnerable to disruptions in the supply of particular fuels and therefore is a form of emergency prevention.
From page 166...
... And local action will seldom occur in complete independence of outside sources of support. To focus on the limitations of local energy action, however, is to miss the main point: that the potential of local action is indeed substantial, large enough to have a truly significant impact on the national energy future.
From page 167...
... Furthermore, most reports of the results of programs are prepared by someone with a stake in making the program look good: such reports are probably too quick to interpret change as success and too quick to attribute success to the program rather than to other events. Because careful and impartial evaluation studies of local energy activities are done so infrequently, it is rarely possible to rule out the interpretation that reported successes are simply local manifestations of a slow national trend toward improved energy efficiency.
From page 168...
... It is hardly ever used to examine energy activities that are neither funded nor mandated by government. This inattention to local energy action may be due simply to the recency of the phenomenon, but it may also reflect, in part, the way many analysts think about energy.
From page 169...
... In these communities, however, the shape of past energy actions may determine what occurs next. For example, in the mid-1970s, technical analysts for the municipally owned company, Seattle City Light, projected increases in demand for electricity that would require additional generating capacity by 1990.
From page 170...
... 3. One successful local energy action will make it easier to attract community attention to others, and so localities are most likely to get involved in energy by stages: an initial, minor involvement may facilitate further local action by a process analogous to behavioral momentum in individuals (see Chapter 3)
From page 171...
... Philosophical support for local energy action becomes politically significant only when it is embodied in organizations. Using a community development philosophy, the chamber of commerce in Richmond, Indiana organized the people who provided essential support for the city's initial energy planning activity (Cose, 1984)
From page 172...
... Energy actions tied to a community development philosophy and offering some tangible benefits to well-organized local constituencies are most likely to be given serious attention by local political bodies.
From page 173...
... Few feasible options may remain: improved management of public buildings and equipment, low-cost and no-cost building weatherization programs, and increased political conflict over redistributional proposals. Obtaining Resources Local energy actions typically require three kinds of resources: money, labor, and expertise.
From page 174...
... For example, the Pembroke Solar Project in Kankakee County, Illinois, has built a program to educate the local public about low-cost ways to meet energy and food needs, and has trained unemployed members of the community using only small grants for passive solar-heating technologies. As outside resources have become even more limited, the project struggles on with smaller self-help projects in an effort to become self-supporting.5 In Richmond, Indiana, energy planning that was done with federal funds has led the city to choose energy options it expects to implement solely with internal sources of support, such as low-cost residential conservation activities, city-funded conservation education seminars, a volunteer program to teach businesses how to save energy, and economic research on the potential for district heating.6 And the experience of success in Fitchburg has led the city government to apply weatherization techniques to its own buildings, and has encouraged a local community service agency, United Neighbors, to conduct workshops on installing solar collectors.7 Despite these hopeful signs, the main effect of decreased federal support for local energy action is likely to be negative.
From page 175...
... Maintaining Policies and Programs Like other public actions at the local level, local energy actions are subject to politics. As a result, they can continue to exist in one of two ways.
From page 176...
... Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. a tension between "social goals" and "energy goals." A plausible proposition to examine is that labor-intensive energy actions may be the most difficult to institutionalize.
From page 177...
... Three types of institutions are probably important in spreading ideas for local energy action. First, the mass media transform local events into news stories, thus spreading rudimentary information about new energy ideas and identifying individuals as sources of further information.
From page 178...
... We have already noted the great diversity of local energy programs and policies and of the local conditions in which they occur. Because many variables simultaneously influence the way local energy actions emerge and develop, no ordinary program of evaluation research has much hope of isolating and controlling enough variables to reach any definite conclusions, even about a single program.
From page 179...
... From such research, social scientists and practitioners would be able to develop a qualitative knowledge of the processes involved in local energy action -- something like the propositions we suggest, but with more detail and a stronger basis in fact. Such an effort would be a beginning, but it would not be sufficient because local energy activities develop in a context that is constantly changing.
From page 180...
... but also about what happens when communities try to act on the many different philosophical premises that underlie their particular local energy activities: preserving natural resources; increasing local control over essential resources; redistributing political power and social services; developing the community economic base; or promoting technologies based on appropriateness to the size of the community. If viewed this way, the experiences of local energy actions may provide a way to assess the more general potential for solving national problems at the local level.
From page 181...
... They are promoted as supportive of environmental values. And in addition, they are defended as good in themselves because they are believed to and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted.


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