No, I don't mean taking a nap! Although that wouldn't be so bad. We have a chronic sleep deficiency in this country. Lack of sleep contributes to accidents, disease and obesity; and interferes with learning and making good decisions. (Hmmm, maybe that's what wrong with our politicians!)
Back to saving energy . . . and speaking of politicians, they mostly aren't interested, especially on the federal level, in saving energy. Either they misunderstand clean energy, or they are supported by the extractive industries, or maybe they think that if it was good enough for the 1950's, it's good enough today. They are on the wrong side of history.
The extracted resources are finite, they pollute air and water, and are dangerous to workers; pipelines leak and threaten fragile ecosystems . . . I could go on and on. The future is clean, renewable energy – wind, solar, geothermal – and more efficient use of it. "We the people" understand that. And we're taking the matter into our own hands.
Local towns are changing to LED bulbs for public lighting; you see solar panels sprouting on many roofs; planning boards are approving large solar arrays for sale of electric to local people. I have friends who have a house built in the 1800's; when they renovated it, they added geothermal heat. No mess, no smell, no disruption of a beautiful house, just the invisible use of earth's natural heat.
All over the world, all kinds of innovative ideas are being tried. The passive cooling system in a building in Zimbabwe was inspired by termite mounds. New buildings are being certified by LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) at the rate of 1.85 million square feet per day. Plug-in electric cars are gaining market share year by year. . .
Ordinary people and local groups are quietly sliding the rug out from under the oil, gas and coal industries. Sometimes we forget that WE have the power, and that the government is answerable to US.
P.S. You CAN watch TV when the sun isn't shining and the wind not blowing – it's called energy storage.