Word: less
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Only a recluse could fail to know somebody who uses less ingenuity in living than in worrying and guarding against subtle hazards. Perhaps the surest sign that the admonitory mood is taking a toll is the fact that Americans have begun to write advice columnists about the problems that all the cautions cause. Warnings about cholesterol in eggs, nitrate in bacon, caffeine in coffee (and, a while back, risky chemicals in even the decaffeinated variety) have sapped the fun out of eating breakfast for some people, it seems. Wrote one such: "I'd try bread and water...
...90¢ per gal. from about 55¢ a year ago, grubbing for firewood in a muddy forest does not seem such a bad idea. A few years ago, a good many Americans could not have said for sure what was being burned to keep them warm. Heat bills were often less than phone bills. Now, they not only know what heats their homes, but millions, particularly those who must use oil, are painfully aware that their bills will nearly double this winter over last year. Solar heating of water and living space has crossed the minds of many. The business...
...Iran shortfall actually will not register until January, and while it may cause a gasoline shortage early next year, Washington describes heating-oil reserves as being above 1978 levels and higher than the "projected normal stock range." The fact is that less heating oil has been ordered by customers so far this year than during the same period in 1978. A relatively warm November has helped, but the Department of Energy gives much of the credit for the shrinkage in demand to high prices that in turn have led to greater conservation efforts. Citizens are discovering that plugging holes...
...Muller calculates that the college got back $20,000 of its storm-window expenditure last year, and that at 1979 oil prices it should have saved the rest by midwinter. Not all of his conservation problems are so easy to solve. A handsome arts complex, designed when oil cost less than $2 per bbl., turns out to be a stubborn and profligate fuel waster. When its radiant heating system is turned down to a reasonable consumption level, the building's pipes are in danger of freezing...
...skyscrapers that sprouted in New York and other big cities. "Cheap oil made us very lazy," admits the illustrious Philip Johnson, 73, who with the equally illustrious Mies van der Rohe designed Manhattan's Seagram Building. Conceived by their creators as formal abstractions, such austere structures bore out the "less is more" precept in an unintended way: they used far more heating and cooling energy than the buildings they replaced. Now owners are scrambling to make skyscrapers more energy efficient with such devices as heat pumps, reflective film on windows and costly refinements of lighting systems. (At present, a late...