Energy Literacy:
What you don't know can hurt you

Why we're heading for an energy crisis...

It seems that everybody's got an opinion these days about how to fight high gas prices. Punish price gougers. Tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Drill in protected areas in Alaska or off the Atlantic coast.

And then there's the chain e-mail urging a consumer boycott of one brand of gas station at a time until each company cries "uncle" and agrees to lower its price.

Normally, Britons don't give energy a second thought - and it shows. We'd much rather argue about such non-issues as flag burning, gay marriage and when it's finally time to ban hoodies from street corners.

But when the price of gas, electricity or heating oil goes up, then we can hardly talk about anything else besides energy. And of course, we all think we're experts. But, boy, are we wrong.

The sad truth is that Britons are about as bad as our American cousins. They also know much less about energy than they think, according to a study released last September by the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation in Washington, D.C:

  • Just 12 percent of Americans can pass a basic quiz on awareness of energy topics.
  • 130 million Americans believe that hydropower is America's top energy source, though it accounts for just 10 percent of the total.
  • Most Americans agree with the myth that "America uses pollution-free energy," when in fact their energy use is the biggest single source of global warming gases and other pollutants.

To compound the problem, "three Americans in four rated themselves as having 'a lot' or 'a fair amount' of knowledge about energy," says Kevin Coyle, former president of the NEETF and the study's author, "even though just 12 percent passed the quiz. This gap between real and imagined knowledge could stand in the way of Americans realizing a more energy efficient future."

Laying Blame WON’T SAVE US…

With gas prices rising and oil use peaking, at the same time that we start to feel global warming's first effects, it will be crucial to the world's future that Americans and Europeans, who use the most energy and create the most pollution, make smart decisions about energy.

But to do that, we need to begin by realizing how little we know and how much we have to learn. "Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge," said Alfred North Whitehead.

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