Do you wash your clothes by hand, with water heated from solar? No? Then why are you suggesting that most of the women in the world should continue spending their lives doing such menial activity?
This idea that we need to use less energy is one of the most short-sighted examples of western cultural privilege that I've ever seen. The amount of energy the average person has available to utilize for day-to-day needs is one of the best correlations to social progress and freedom.
People that don't have to spend their days washing their cloths by hand have spare time to spend on things like getting an education or participating in a democracy. We should be using nuclear power to significantly increase the amount of power people use so the social benefits currently enjoyed by the "west" can reach more areas in the world.
I not joking or exaggerating when I say that if we let the amount of available energy per-person reduce significantly, society will start to revert back to old institutions like feudalism and slavery. Without energy, you don't have the free time to become educated. Without education, we lose institutions that depend on an educated population like democracy.
This would be a good argument if a high portion of a comfortable lifestyle energy consumption went to washing machine-level improvements to living standards. Instead energy is so cheap in first world countries that we waste it and use 10x more than we need.
The washing machine might eventually show up in the charts once we cut out enough of the big items from energy wasting cuplrits. Even then most of the electricity consumption goes to heating the water, but it doesn't even register enough to warrant hot water intakes in washing machines. Or heat exchangers in waste water systems for this and shower/dishwasher.
(You don't want to waste electricity on water heating when you could heat it with solar, CHP or waste water recovered heat)
I never said anything about my washing machine. Maybe you should try to watching that talk by Hans Rosling that I linked to.
Who are you to say that using less energy is an option, when you have the luxury of heating and energy-expensive transportation, and most of the world doesn't yet have the energy to wash their clothes?
Do you wash your clothes by hand, with water heated from solar? No? Then why are you suggesting that most of the women in the world should continue spending their lives doing such menial activity?
This idea that we need to use less energy is one of the most short-sighted examples of western cultural privilege that I've ever seen. The amount of energy the average person has available to utilize for day-to-day needs is one of the best correlations to social progress and freedom.
People that don't have to spend their days washing their cloths by hand have spare time to spend on things like getting an education or participating in a democracy. We should be using nuclear power to significantly increase the amount of power people use so the social benefits currently enjoyed by the "west" can reach more areas in the world.
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...
I not joking or exaggerating when I say that if we let the amount of available energy per-person reduce significantly, society will start to revert back to old institutions like feudalism and slavery. Without energy, you don't have the free time to become educated. Without education, we lose institutions that depend on an educated population like democracy.
edit: fixed missing word