 Capitalism Is A Dead Frog,
or: Energy Saving as a Threat on the Western World
by Wu Ming 1 & Wu Ming 5
(October 2003, translated into English in April 2006)
First scene: a crew of oarsmen on a boat. They energically row and thrust themselves along a quiet river. The slant of the image suggests freedom, progress and peace. The picture evokes a lifestyle and a state of mind that have to do with serenity, open-mindedness and equanimity. Those men devote themselves to a common effort.
It's a poster commissioned by Hera, the gas company of Bologna and Romagna.
Second scene: a likeable middle-aged man is hugging a seal, or maybe a sea lion. The two beings are great friends, and the caption affirms it in a rather pleonastic way. The man is smiling.
It's a poster commissioned by Enel, Italy's biggest power company.
Advertising campaigns targeting a vast mass of population don't have to be subtle. The purpose is not to describe the belonging to an elite. The purpose is to represent the generality of a need in the most pervasive way.
Everybody needs a true friend, be it a seal or a sea lion. Everybody needs Enel.
Everybody needs water, electricity and gas.
Everybody needs water, but water is a limited resource. It is rare, in a very precise meaning of the term. Even if you count all the glaciers, icecaps, rivers and lakes, fresh water is only 0.6% of the planet's volume.
The daily water consumption of a not-too-poor African peasant is twenty litres [5.284 USA gallons; 4.404 Imperial gallons].
The daily water consumption of a poor African peasant is 5 litres [1.321 USA gallons; 1.101 Imperial gallons].
Pro capite water consumption in Europe is 165 litres per day [43.593 USA gallons; 36,333 Imperial gallons].
Pro capite water consumption in Italy is about 200 litres [52,84 USA gallons; 44,04 Imperial gallons].
The figure is not surprising, if you think that when you flush the toilet you waste 9-12 litres of fresh water, and when you leave the faucet on while you brush your teeth you waste at least 10 litres, and when you leave the faucet on while you wash the dishes you waste about 80 litres.
The so-called "North of the world" is actually a set of different cultures. What joins the inhabitants of this area of the planet one to another is their taking the lead in consuming raw materials and manufacts. Consumption has defined the "average" "Western" way of life, which is now a reality effect. We are very protective of our way of life, as though changing some irrational, noxious habits could impair our identity, and even our very existence. Poverty is a relative condition. In the face of class divide and unfair distribution of wealth, the majority of citizens perceive themselves as poor, not wealthy, or barely included in society, always at risk of falling back into the hell of under-consumption, far away from the important commodities. It is in order to uphold this effort of self-identification that - so they assure us - WE NEED MORE ENERGY.
Our homes are heated by gas, but it's electricity providing the real warmth. Without the lights, our cities would be sad and dull. It is thanks to lighting that the night became a practicable territory and an emotional fulcrum. Do you remember the cliché about "those grey cities in Eastern Europe"? The quintessential western city is the city that never sleeps, where lights are always on. The western world defeated Communism by dint of rock'n'roll and a lavish light show.
As seen from space, the planet has constellations on its surface, and it's very simple to detect the wealthiest areas: they're the most illuminated ones.
In the North of the world, even the poorest ranks of the population have access to their daily ration of "induced warmth". When you return home at night, and the lights are off, the LEDs on the TV and the stereo tell you that it's all right. When we're not there, the house keeps breathing and living. The house lives and consumes energy. No house can be perceived as a cosy, comfortable place if we strip it of its central nervous system, the circulatory system, the excretory system, and all the apparatuses that serve to feed it and connect to the outside.
If we keep a TV set on for only two hours a day, and we leave it on stand-by for the remaining twenty-two hours, it will consume two thirds of the energy while inactive.
A computer kept in sleep mode consumes 162 kwh/year. A TV set + stereo kept on stand-by consume 73 kwh/year. A DVD player: 101 kwh/year. A laser printer: 123 kwh/year. The total is 430 kwh/year. It's the equivalent of the energy consumed by a 100w light-bulb left on for six months. It's the equivalent of a hundred cycles of a washing machine. On a national level, if we think that there are about ten millions of households in Italy, the total is 4.300.000 megawatts/year. In fact the total is much more, if we think that many households have (at least) two TV sets and/or two stereos and/or two computers in the house. How much pollution by coal and by petroleum is necessary in order to produce - and immediately waste - such an amount of energy?
 The phrase "energy requirements" is utterly ideological. That energy is required only to preserve this kind of dissipation, this irrational over-consumption, this "Western" way of life which (so they assure us) IS NOT NEGOTIABLE.
This is the reason even such sensible, minimal advice as: don't keep your appliances on stand-by - use low-consumption lightbulbs - don't keep the faucet on when you brush your teeth - install good windows and insulate walls (and many more little solutions that would alter energy requirements in an unexpected way) still encounter a fierce resistance. They threaten our sense of identity.
In Bologna, at the back of Piazza Maggiore, there's Piazza Galvani, at whose centre is the statue of Luigi Galvani (born 1737 - dead 1798), the discoverer of bioelectricity, author of the milestone work De vibus electricitatis in motu muscolari commentarius [Comments on the power of electricity in the movement of muscles]. Galvani's experiments are well known: he stimulated the bodies of dead frogs with a metal scalpel, and static electricity produced muscle contractions. His discoveries influenced Alessandro Volta (born 1745 - dead 1827), who ended up inventing the battery.
In 2001, on a springtime night, unknown people hung a placard on the statue's left hand, and there was written: "CAPITALISM IS A DEAD FROG".
The cryptic statement made several passers-by scratch their heads. If we employ a metonymy and read "capitalism" as the way of life in the richest countries, we'll see that the metaphor is fitting. Thanks to a perpetual electrostimulation, death is made to resemble life. Our way of death (so they assure us) is not negotiable.
That's the reason, the only reason, we need more energy.
8 - 10 october 2003 |
