Gone are the days when we can afford to luxuriate under a hot shower for hours on end. Well, maybe the showers weren’t quite that long but most people are used to taking showers in the tens of minutes.

It’s easy to lose track of time in the shower. And it does feel nice.

That’s a luxury that’s no longer economically nor ecologically sustainable. First of all, we’re short of water. In most areas of Australia the powers-that-be keep telling us if we don’t be good boys and girls and cut our water usage then we are going to run out.

(Those same powers [read politicians] that keep blaming us wasteful consumers don’t mention that for the most part water shortages are their fault, because they haven’t invested the necessary dollars in water infrastructure while population has steadily increased for much of the last half century. But let’s not get into that argument. At least not right now . . .)

Second, we’re short of electric power. The power that goes to heat the water is also in very short supply. Load shedding (ie, blackouts!) is becoming more and more common as supply authorities attempt to cut peak loads. Those same powers-that-be keep telling us that if we don’t reduce our consumption of power, it’s going to get worse.

(Those same powers [read politicians] that keep blaming us wasteful consumers, etc etc etc . . .)

Putting aside all the scare-mongering that’s going on in political circles (my spell checker wanted to change that to circuses, which would be perhaps more apt) it really does make sense for us, as consumers, to try to save both water and power – if only because that means less of our hard-earned dollars will end up in Government coffers.

One way to do both, of course, is to take shorter showers. How short?