Why isn't this conservation idea on the table of debate?

Question

In order to conserve electricity and gasoline, why not make it manditory that all "non essential work" be postponed once per week. All manufacturing and retail business must shut down completely one day out of the week. All at the same time.Or better yet, why not go to a 4 day work week. Limit the amount of driving on the weekends to odd numbered one day and even numbered plates the following day.

This is only tossing out an idea. After all your remarks, who knows, I might just agree with someone who says that the idea is totally crazy. So you can't pin me down to the notion that I support this. Just an idea.

Answer 1

<<postponed?>> you mean closed Wednesdays?  How 'bout Fridays, so i get a 3 day weekend all the time.  But, if i have to work long hours Mon-Thur, when do i go renew my DMV license?  or do other such shopping?

<<driving on the weekends to odd numbered one day and even numbered plates the following day.>>  so, i can't go somewhere and stay over one night?  what if it's the day i can't drive and i have to go to the hospital?  or do i just need to buy 2 cars so i'll be sure i can drive one?

(just tossing it out there)

Answer 2

Idea is great, but dont u think in those three days energy will be waisted for unproductive works.  

idea of postponing non essential work will be realy fruitful, it may work.

Answer 3

AMEN AMEN AMEN!!!! I dont get it either.. I believe it's because money... no one wants to loose money. But if citizens like us stand up against them then WE win.

Answer 4

Define "non essential work (or workers)."  I challenge you to define it, because it really cannot be done.  I had this argument with someone who was VERY religious and thought all non-essential businesses should be closed on Sundays.

Everyone agrees that police, fire, ambulance, and hospitals are essential workers.  How about the folks that take care of nursing home residence?  Obviously they are essential.

How about gas stations, and truck stops...people may be traveling accross state to see loved ones (weddings, illness, vacation, funerals, ect), and of course truckers are completely essential to keep trasporting goods to consumers day and night.  Ok, so gas stations, and truck stops are essential.

What if a mother runs out of diapers, or formula?  Ok, so grocery stores are essential.

What about perscriptions....people do not get to choose when they become ill.  Ok, so not dentists, doctors, and pharmacies are essential.

Where are all of these essentail workers going to eat, if they didn't have time to pack a lunch at home?  Ok, now fast food has become essential.

Of course many of these essential workers will have children, so daycares need to be open, since they would also be essential.

Older teen children need to not be bored out of their skulls, and doing drugs, getting pregnant, or robbing their neighbors home, while their essential worker parents are at work.  So we need teen draw businesses to be open, since that becomes essential...so that means movie theaters, malls, archaides (sp?), book stores, libraries, water parks, city parks....well you get the point.

Everything is interconected....everything is "esential."

There's another factor with shutting down some types of manufacturing....they basically cannot, because machines do not always start up correctly, or it takes so long (sometimes days) for the machine to properly warm back up.  A simple example would be some types of pizza parlors, and bakeries, that use large brick ovens.  They never let the ovens cool down, since it takes too long to heat them back up.

Here's another thing to think about....what do people do on their days off?  If they had three days off in a row, a whole lot more people would be spending even more on gas to drive places they normally wouldn't because they didn't have enough time off.

By the way, do you realize in the U.S.A., back in the 1970's they did the even, odd number thing with license plates.  Only it pertained to days you could put fuel in your car, not days you were, or were not allowed to drive.  You couldn't restrict the days that people were, or were not allowed to drive....people have appointments, people become ill, people attend church, people go to weddings/funerals/showers/birthday parties, ect.  Nobody but a fool would allow the Government to say what days they could and could not drive.

By the way, the way around the law back in the 1970's for days you were allowed to put fuel in your vehicle was truck plates.  Any vehicle with truck plates could fill up on any day they choose.  Trucks are concidered to be "working vehicles."  Plumbers, painters, lanscapers, yard maintenance, construction, Vetrinarians, ect.  All sorts of peopl drive trucks for work.  Almost every single SUV can qualify to have truck plates....you don't ACTUALLY have to use the vehicle for work.  

Since so many people drive SUVs, they'd just slap truck plates on them, and the gas usage/driving wouldn't change even a tiny bit.  

So we'd just end up with another useless law, rules and regulations that actually did not a single thing to help the environment.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 5

I really don't think that would work... Our economy is based on business's, if you take out the business for one day/week, our market's would just crash instantaneously leading us to a recession, maybe even a depression... To conserve gasoline and other energy providers, we'll have to change our whole way of thinking, using solar power to power our cities, wind turbines, more hydroelectricity, switch to biofuel cars made from willow plants and other sustainable plants... that would be the only way of slowing or even stopping our consumption of unsustainable energy's... However this will be a extremely slow change if the government's just going to be p***y footing around this issue...