{"id":739822,"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.com\/index\/739822","title":{"rendered":"The psychology of saving energy: Alex Laskey at TED2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_71540\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 910px\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" class=\"size-full wp-image-71540\" alt=\"Photo: James Duncan Davidson\" src=\"http:\/\/tedconfblog.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/02\/ted2013_0052669_d41_9798.jpg?w=900&#038;h=604&#038;fit=900%2C604&#038;resize=780%2C523\" width=\"780\" height=\"523\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: James Duncan Davidson<\/p><\/div>\n<p>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<p>Laskey introduces an experiment he ran with <a href=\"http:\/\/opower.com\/\" >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<p>- You can save $54 this month<br \/>\n- You can save the planet<br \/>\nor<br \/>\n- You can be a good citizen<\/p>\n<p>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<p>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, &#8220;If something is inconvenient, even if we believe it, persuasion won&#8217;t work. But social pressure? That&#8217;s powerful stuff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8212; more than enough energy to power every home in St. Louis and Salt Lake City for more than a year.<\/p>\n<p>We can be doing so much better, says Laskey, starting by tapping into the power of social behavior.<\/p>\n<br \/>  <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/gocomments\/tedconfblog.wordpress.com\/70160\/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/comments\/tedconfblog.wordpress.com\/70160\/\" \/><\/a> <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?resize=1%2C1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><img src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TEDBlog\/~4\/xnfjlIVhMaY\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12076,4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-739822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-36sC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}