Tom Kelly

These family vignettes provide a living frame for the facts and figures in later chapters. They tell the energy life story of different kinds of people of different ages, living in different places, under widely different circumstances.

This account of energy use from real life supplements the formal research findings in several important ways. First, people often think of their own experience as the norm, so it is important to illustrate how "other people" live. Yet, some people have unreal but firm ideas about "other people." Since effective and equitable energy policy is crucial, it should rely on facts rather than beliefs. Statistics alone are often not enough to dislodge beliefs that are contrary to fact. Gunnar Myrdal has said, "Ignorance—like knowledge—is seldom random but is instead highly opportunistic,..."

A statistical profile is not as clear or convincing to many people as a family profile. The following life stories bring into sharp focus many of the major findings: the huge leap some families have made from little but muscle power to run a home, to an energy filled household; the chasm in energy use even now separating poor and well off; and how energy using possessions often stem from necessity or lack of an alternative.

DAVID AND GLORIA M—INCOME $11,000 A YEAR-PLUS—NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VA.

David and Gloria M, now both 60, have lived in a six-room apartment in a large complex of red brick buildings for twenty years. It is a mile north of Alexandria,