Stay Home and Save the World

Time to celebrate, introverts!

If you have spent the better half of a lifetime shamefacedly making excuses for why you don’t want to go somewhere — to the store, out to eat, to the movies — you now have the perfect excuse. Explain that you are busy trying to save the earth for future generations….

In a recent survey on American Time Use, researchers found that fewer and fewer Americans are leaving home. The natural conclusion, according to researchers, is that technological developments such as online shopping, remote working, and streaming services make it less necessary to leave home as frequently.

In fact, Americans are spending so much more time at home than before that this tend resulted in a net 1,700 trillion Btu (British thermal units) in energy savings for the U.S. in 2012.

While the number of people staying home now might mean a spike in residential energy demand, the decrease in travel and the decrease in non-residential space use mean significant energy savings.

Based on the 2012 numbers:

• Americans spent an extra eight days at home
• Americans spent one day less traveling
• Americans spent one week less in non-residential buildings (i.e., at work)

“We did expect to see net energy decrease, but we had no idea of the magnitude," says first author Ashok Sekar (@_ashok7), a postdoctoral fellow who studies consumer energy use and policy at the University of Texas at Austin. "This work raises awareness of the connection between lifestyle and energy. Now that we know people are spending more time at home, more focus could be put on improving residential energy efficiency." Sekar conducted the study with Eric Williams and Roger Chen, sustainability researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

So get back on that couch, introvert and do your thing!