#51 / Efficiency

More sounds better than less. But "efficiency" sounds pretty good, too.

And efficiency means: "less."

Same effects, but with less energy; less time; less expenditure. Etc.

It's the basis for a whole political movement.

During his first administration, Governor Jerry Brown created the Local Government Commission on Energy Conservation and Renewable Resources, as an Executive Branch agency. This was the Governor's response to the "energy crisis."

When the politics of the time was calling for more energy production, the LGC, as it came to be called, mobilized the power of local government to use less energy. The idea was to reduce California's energy consumption and energy demand by using energy more efficiently. This effort to build a policy on less was fabulously successful.

The LGC still exists, now an independent nonprofit corporation. It is currently focused on "smart growth" solutions to our land use challenges. Same philosophy in a different arena.