That's the concept behind Ben Arent's Energy Tree. We're accustomed to energy and power on demand. Anytime we need it, as much as we need, it's there. The Energy Tree is supposed to change how we perceive energy use, more importantly how we should conserve it. The Energy Tree monitors your home and habits. Every bit of energy usage is noted and anytime the system feels you're wasting energy, it does something morbid. It feeds the real live tree growing out of it with poison! The incentive here is be a good "green" go-getter and the tree gets water and nutrients. Be careless and wasteful and the tree slowly dies. Of course it might be hard to judge how well you're doing without any actual data so the Energy Tree outputs all that info on a display. Now ask yourself how much energy is this Energy Tree using to do all this? It uses A LOT but all that energy comes from its built-in solar panel. I find the whole idea intriguing if not morbid. Any system designed to encourage certain behaviors and habits should do so thru positive reinforcement. We can learn new tricks but just like dogs, treats and praise are the keys to success.
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