Inside Report with Basch: Winter has come

The challenge to stay warm is on, and with Eskom power cuts looming along with the increase in tarifs the challenge begs invention.

Gone are the days of having heaters running all day and electric blankets runninhg all night. The power network is under pressure and will fail if we don’t find a solution. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best. Using blankets and dressing warmer, and layering your clothes can alleviate the need for heaters. Using hot water bottles to warm the bed instead of electric blankets. There is a new cool hot water bottle that is battery operated, meaning it will stay warm all night without drawing from the network.

I have even gone so far as to assess my house for where the breeze comes from and tried to block that. I think that we are in an age of invention, but at the same time we are still an instant generation. What I mean is that we are so used to having everything we need at our finger tips. Instant coffee, instant food and so on. The challenge now is to change our behaviour around power consumption, even little changes will make a huge difference.

But to change behaviour you need to start with attitude. Now you could say that they are the same thing, but in truth attitude defines behaviour. We need to adopt a solution-focused attitude to promote a savings behaviour.

We can sit and complain about the sad state of affairs that is Eskom, or we can accept that there is no quick fix or instant answer and instead become inventors. Invent new ways of saving power and staying warm.

Or maybe its about a trade-off, saving power in other places so we can power our heaters. There is also the metro and the illegal connections and street lights that burn all day. There is an attitude that needs to be adjusted. My challenge goes out to the metro, to lead to by example. To pioneer solutions that our community will benefit from and create a behaviour that we can all adopt.