▶ Your Answer :
There is some disagreement over whether or not raising the price of gasoline and electricity is the only way to engage energy conservation. Some people agree with the idea because it will motivate people to use less energy. I, however, firmly think that it is not an only strategy to conserve energy. The reasons are as follows.
First of all, providing an incentive to houses with less energy consumption is more effective than imposing more money for energy consumption. This is because people tend to be motivated when they get feelings of being rewarded. Of course, imposing more money will be a motivation as well, but it is not as effective as incentive. According to a study conducted by cognitive science research team in Stanford University, there was a huge gap between two group of high school students in electronic air conditioner usage during one month. The first group was given one dollar for each day they do not use air conditioners, while the second group was forced to pay one dollar for each day they use air conditioner. The researchers found out that the former used air conditioner for 8.5 days on average, while the latter used air conditioner for 17.9 days on average. The experts on psychology linked this experiments with Reward Theory, which indicates that people are more motivated when they are rewarded for a good behavior rather than when they are punished for a bad behavior. As this study shows, giving an incentive for less energy utilization is a better strategy than imposing more money for energy usage. Moreover, developing alternative energy technology is more effective than raising price of the energy. If people can use alternative energy such as solar energy or marine energy that can be permanently consumed, they will no longer use traditional energy such as fossil fuels. Therefore, investing money for developing alternative energy and enable people to use it is a better way to encourage energy consumption. For example, Texas had invested a lot of money developing solar energy technology, Last year, the state provided solar energy plate to each individual building to get sunlight from its rooftop and utilize the energy from it. Surprisingly, after six months, the usage of external energy decreased by 56 percent. The experts says that self-sufficient energy production made the utilization of external energy drop. As this experiment reveals, utilizing permanent energy source is an alternative way to engage less external energy source such as gasoline.
To summarize, I highly believe that increasing the price of the energy is not an only way to encourage saving energy because there are other alternatives such as giving an incentive for less usage of energy and utilizing permanent energy source. All in all, since energy consumption is a crucial issue these days, various methods to prevent the excessive utilization of the energy should be developed.
[Score] 28-30 [Feedback] - 수정할 것은 전혀 없구요. Reward Theory와 alternative energy 등 기발한 아이디어가 매우 돋보입니다~^^ 수고하셨어요. |