Do you ever wonder how much energy it takes to power our modern society?

Sometimes, we try to contextualize numbers by relating them to some number of blue whales, or volumes of Olympic sized swimming pools. Neither whales nor swimming pools are easily comparable to energy use, at least in casual conversation.

Fortunately, where the whales and pools don’t tell us a good story, the BBC succeeded brilliantly with an episode of ‘Bang Goes the Theory’, in which a modern family home is powered, unbeknownst to them, by a crack team of cyclists. A particularly telling part of the show is the human power shower (available here on YouTube), in which 78 cyclists are needed to power an on-demand electric water heater. Doing some simple math, if those 78 cyclists each took a shower at the end of the day, it would take 6084 cyclists to heat their water.

The human power shower brings home the message of conserving energy. If that shower had been shorter, used colder water, and the water heated by a more efficient heater, then a lot of cyclists would have been spared.

And so we come to the main point of this blog: Sweater Day. On Thursday, February 5th, UNBC will be taking part in Sweater Day, a national day of promoting energy conservation. As the World Wildlife Fund website notes:

National Sweater Day is a fun way to learn about the importance of saving energy, and inspire you to use less heat all winter. Heating accounts for 80% of residential energy use in Canada, and is a significant source of emissions. If all Canadians lowered their thermostats by just 2 degrees Celsius this winter, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 4 megatons – equivalent to shutting down a 600 mega watt coal-fired power station.

For those of you who are interested, a 600 MW coal-fired power station is the equivalent of 800 blue whales or 27 Olympic sized swimming pools. But I digress…

All jokes aside, this is a fantastic opportunity for us to take some very simple steps to conserve energy and leave a better world for the next generation. 

So what will UNBC be doing on Sweater Day?

We are going to turn down the temperature setpoints on campus from 24^oC to 22^oC. In doing so, we hope to help UNBC conserve energy, and actually improve the comfort level of many of our offices and classrooms that are overheated. 

And what can you do on sweater day?

We would love for you to put on a sweater on February 5^th, and join us in promoting energy conservation and environmental responsibility. If you wish, we invite you to also reduce the temperature in your office, meeting room, and/or classroom to help us conserve even more energy. 

There are different types of sweaters you can wear on Sweater Day

Personally, I have two recommendations:

1. an ugly sweater, because your cheeks will burn from the embarrassment (thereby heating you);
2. a sweater knitted by a loved one, because that will also warm your heart; or
3. a combination of (1) and (2) is possible as well.

So why do I sweater? I sweater to show I care. I sweater to help UNBC save energy. I sweater, because I can. I hope you will sweater with me.

Sincerely,