Tuesday, October 06, 2009

IRONY ALERT - Aunty says switch off. Not her, of course

Watching (on a PIP on my PC) Breakfast BBC News.

Just loved the way they intro'd a piece on an energy saving story about the Isles of Scilly.

'What one thing could you switch off now?'...pause... 'Er... not the TV of course'.

First image I see? A person switching off her TV.

Always a bit dubious about 'days', and this one seems no different. However, it did gain the community some PR to share notions like not running a power shower for 5 minutes before getting in it.

O....k.

Actually, all this energy awareness seems to be spinning on its own axis to me. Not that any that is shared is in any way not worth knowing, but there is a ton of money saying very few, blooming obvious things and... over and over. Good enviROI?

Just look at the latest EST ad that this would appear to be coinciding with.

If not having a bath and switching down your fridge is the best they can do after all this time, I think the money could really have been spent better elsewhere, on issues where folk may well be persuaded by pragmatic advice.

Addendum - the event site, sadly not shared by the national broadcaster. Interesting stuff, if a bit 'busy'

2 comments:

Dave said...

Peter,
It may well be something of a waste of money dishing out the same repetitive advice over and over again, but, in this case, because the Scilly Isles has only a single mains feed from the mainland (via an undersea cable), it could actually be quite useful in terms of providing some genuine empirical data as to exactly how effective these measures might be. Let's wait and see what the results are before passing judgement.

On the EST, yes, I do agree. The entire website is actually dedicated to consumer products, insulation, glazing and light bulbs. If anyone thinks that they will find advice on, for example, what solar products they ought to be looking at, they are going to be disappointed. Go to the EST website and click on the 'Energy Saving Products' tab if you want to check this out.
D.

Emma said...

Point taken.

I am just currently in a mighty snit with the sanctimonious, DDAIDDAIS BBC at the moment and this pushed my buttons (geddit?:)

And, might not the data be a tad skewed by all the inhabitants cooperating with all unnecessary energy consumption... except the TV!

I noted the talking head saying they had allowed for this, but thought it was, rather quaintly, factoring in their live feed drain only.

Plus, if we are talking about what is effectively a dirty great energy monitor test, would not it require better coordination of what gets switched on and off at once to actually figure out what is causing the drains? Or is that why the TVs are 'all' on... to be choreographed? THAT would make sense, though if it was/is the case, it was not made very clear in the slot.

I actually quite like some of the EST's stuff, but it is but one quango overlapping scores of others, when one, central government site would suffice... and be a site less confusing.