Government ditches plans for free home energy monitors

One of the things that has become clear over the last year, is that trying to convince people to change to a low carbon lifestyle by frightening them simply doesn't work.

Andrew C Revkin in a New Yorks time article Challenges to Both Left and Right on Global Warming interviewed the author Michael Shellenberger who pointed out that "Martin Luther King didn't give the ‘I have a nightmare’ speech, he gave an ‘I have a dream’ speech".

The UK government had been planning to compel energy suppliers to handout £15 monitors that attach themselves to your power meter and show how much energy you use, but appears to have backed down to energy industry pressure who say this may complicate the roll out of smart energy meters. However, these meters are not due to be fully rolled out until 2020

We've got an OWL Wireless Energy Monitor from the Ethical Superstore and its been great in working out what uses lots of power. Friends of mine have used it to educate their children on power consumption and who now know the effects of leaving items on standby.

So what's so complicated here? Nothing that I can see apart from the fact that we might all start consuming less power and that's not necessarily a good thing for the power companies. That may sound a little cynical, but why else would then object.

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