In 2017, the average American citizen used 88,000 kilowatt-hours of energy [1]. When translated into more accessible units, this means that the population of the United States of America consumed 1.7 million atomic bomb explosions worth of energy in the year of 2017 [2]. These number are big and fantastic, but they are also hard to swallow. Just because it’s big doesn’t mean it’s a problem, right? Does it even matter how much energy we consume?

The costs of excessive energy consumption become more apparent every day. Whether its habitat loss, a changing climate or the tenuous nature of the limited fuels on which we rely, there are a lot of reasons to worry about the future. Patiently our societies wait for national programs and engineering marvels to solve this next greatest challenge. We cheer along each new innovation or program that promises to solve the side-effects of our significant energy consumption while guaranteeing unfettered access to all of the energy you could ever want to use.

However, in our hurry to fund the politicians, engineers and scientists we believe capable of solving the latest energy crisis, all of us have neglected the people most capable of turning this ship around; ourselves. We have forgotten that our energy consumption is not a natural phenomena or faceless engineering exercise. Instead, our energy crisis is a beast of our own creation; the culminated result of billions upon billions of individual decisions.

So, bring on the solar panels! Everybody buy a Prius! These tools are good and will get us far, but don’t forget to invest in the tools that bear the greatest changing power – free will, self control and grit. To this end I’ve started the website you see before you, which is mainly a blog written by a research engineer, devoted to recalling effective energy conservation techniques while ultimately calling the world to exercise more restraint regarding our energy consumption. Thanks for joining me.