Interview with Katie & Bruce Heling

Partial Transcript: What did you know about energy growing up?

Segment Synopsis: Didn’t think very much about energy growing up, took it for granted. When Katie looks back, she sees that they did a good job of using things more than once. For example, when the milkman delivered the milk, he would take the old bottles to be cleaned and used again. Bruce agrees that they didn’t think that much about it, but it was because energy wasn’t as important as it is now. “We recycled in a pure way- systemically reused” Overall lived more sustainably- walked to school, only one car, biked around town. Neighborhoods were more closely-knit. Over the course of their lifetimes, they’ve seen a massive increase in energy consumption.

Keywords: History; Recycling; Sustainability

Partial Transcript: What changes have you seen since your childhood in energy?

Segment Synopsis: Katie only had one car as well, so she also only walked to school. There were several delivery services (ex: bread) that would always come to their house. Instead of having 50 people drive to a bread store, you have one person going to several different homes. Bruce’s parents would go grocery shopping once a week, but would send the kids to walk to the corner grocery store if they needed anything. Katie remembers farmers coming to homes and selling corn- again, people coming to your home and not everyone driving somewhere.

Keywords: Cars; Grocery shopping

Partial Transcript: You lived through the increase in gas prices in the 70s. What do you remember about the 1970s energy embargo or why it happened?

Segment Synopsis: Bruce remembers that before, gasoline was pretty reliably between 20 and 25 cents a gallon. In 1974, there was an Arab oil embargo that stopped petroleum from flowing into US, almost overnight, prices doubled. Suddenly, gas guzzling cars were replaced with smaller, more efficient models- changed the auto industry and the way people thought about energy (became more conscious). In time, the problem was resolved and people seemed to forget again.

Keywords: 1970s; Energy Crisis; Gas prices

Partial Transcript: When did you first hear about renewable energy?

Segment Synopsis: Ann doesn’t remember exactly when, but every thinking person should be concerned about the environment.

Keywords: Renewable energy

Partial Transcript: What thoughts did you have about renewable energy when you first heard about it?

Segment Synopsis: Bruce remembers when he first started hearing about solar projects, and wind farm projects and thinking “These are all great ideas but it’s gonna take forever for this technology to reach us.” This is great, but we need another answer because it’s not practical. Ann mentions that there were also the people that didn’t care enough to do anything. Bruce says that when he was young, there was a lot of hope in nuclear energy. That had a lot of promise, but then there were incidents that scared everybody.

Keywords: Solar; Technology; Wind farms

Partial Transcript: What are your hopes for my generation and how we make and use energy?

Segment Synopsis: Ann hopes that a lot changes, and that she sees young people actually being the agents of change. Young people are growing up with the attitude that things have to change. Bruce is old enough to remember when a lot of these concerns were not concerns, because our technology wasn’t advanced enough to allow them to abuse the resources. Bruce trusts that the younger generation will have the wisdom to figure out where we went too far. Ann remembers a time when everything came in glass container. Bruce says that recycling when he was young didn’t mean grinding something up and remanufacturing it, it meant reusing it. Ann says there was often an additional deposit charge for products that you got back when you returned the bottles.

Keywords: Generations; Recycling; Young people