"Do you know a cleaner way to say—?" 5 Alternative Energy Idioms
Conversational options to transition away from “Fuel” “Oil” “Coal” & “Gas”
“Alternative” Dirty Clean Energy Idioms
Now just for fun, here are 5 idiomatic alternatives to phrases that replace “Fuel” “Oil” “Coal” & “Gas” to retrain our instincts, and change ourselves as we change the world.
I wanted a list of alternatives I could use whenever I automatically tried opting for fossil-fueled phrased idioms. So I’m making up my own.
Feel free to use or comment to add if you’ve got any good options or other phrases you want to replace. I wouldn’t advise using this to call-out anyone, but to use humor to call-in folks. Helps to consider through comparison what’s easy to reach in the systems we inhabit--- towards what’s ideal to power each home on a healthy and habitable planet.
1. Add fuel to the fire: Add rays to the sun / Add wind to the mix / Add cool to the climate
The original idiom To Add Fuel to the fire means to worsen conflict in a situation, but now we have many different fuel options, so instead of resorting to worsening every conflict, we can begin brightening and fixing and bettering and healing conflict, especially those energy and climate-driven.
So let’s Add rays to the sun / Add wind to the mix / Add cool to the climate.
2. Now we’re cooking with gas: Now we're cooking with solar / Now we're cooking with sunrise / Now we're cooking without gas
This idiom gets to the heart of this list— why language retraining is a worthwhile endeavor both personally and as a marketer: “Now we’re cooking with gas” was invented by the methane gas industry in the 1930s as marketing, to convince us all to install poison fueled cooking hookups and market it as the sexy must-have option. The publicist Deke Houlgate popularized the phrase, with product placement so effective Bob Hope and Loony Tunes were spreading it:
“Now you’re cooking with gas” is the ad-campaign phrase that launched millions of pilot lights. It helped to sell millions of indoor natural gas appliances, the oven foremost among them.
Eventually it morphed into a homefront catchphrase, meaning “Now you’ve got the idea,” or “Now you’re doing it right.” —‘Now we’re cooking with gas’ — and paying for it with massive bills, LA Times
Unfortunately most of America had been hoodwinked there, me included, with a lot of work now to retrofit poison fossil gas that cooks our every dinner— into heat sources that don’t cook the planet and harm our health. There are rebates available for electric induction range stoves through the inflation reduction act, and we should all be advocating for more public funding directed towards those who never even get the choice to change.
3. Gaslighting: Sunlighting / Sun-shining / Solar-sparking / Clearlighting / Pathfinding / Beacon-brightening / Greenlighting
The term “gaslighting” actually comes from a 1938 play, “Gas Light” (which was turned into a more widely known movie in 1944, “Gaslight”), where a husband manipulates his wife to make her think she's actually losing her sense of reality so he can commit her to a mental institution and steal her inheritance https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-gaslighting-how-do-you-know-if-it-s-happening-ncna890866
The spiritual opposite of Gaslighting is best held by the legal compliance concept of Sunshine Laws, or policy and regulations that require transparency and disclosure in government or business. And I’ve generated a few other options on that line of thinking.
Here, I’ll leave you with the Chicks’ single, Gaslighter:
Gaslighter, denier
Doin' anything to get your ass farther
Gaslighter, big timer
Repeating all of the mistakes of your father
4. Gas-Guzzler: Planet-Puzzler / Solar-Sizzler / Breeze-Zerphyrer / Tidal-Waveblazer / Bee-Dazzler
This one was a bit of a challenge. But phonetically, figuring out phrases that fit the form was fun. I kept wanting to dilute rather than replace the original phrase, as with something as nonsensical as “Fossil Fizzler.“ But after puzzling over it long enough, the planet came to me, as with: Planet-Puzzler. And then the rest sizzled-forth from there.
Some of these are admittedly silly-sounding, like: I could have gone for BeDazzler, or even Bee Buzzler, considered for the alliteration. But I instead turned this one to opt for the phonetic pun.
5. Step on the gas / Don't let up the gas: Don't let up on the shine / Pedal to the metal / Pedal to the ion / Bike pedal to the swivel / Petal to the floral / Puddle to the metro
I don’t know why we ever really needed “Step on the gas” when we already had “Pedal to the metal!” Your bike, wheelchair, scooters, EV, Maglev trains, and subways likely all have a form of acceleration activated via metal, we can rest easy on this one.
Even still, I’ve come up with some alternative transit optional phrases to use here, ideally all frictionless movement in-symphony with the every other life-forward transit ecosystem.
On a rainy day, walking through downtown DC, it really does feel like you’re puddling to the metro— so, despite the slight differences in meaning, it made the cut.
That’s it for now! I know there are plenty more fossil-fueled idioms (among everything else) to transition, but I’m going to keep it at 5 phrases for now and come back to these in a Part 2 blog which should include: “Burning the midnight oil,“ “Oil the wheels,” “Pour oil on troubled waters,” and more!
If you have any suggestions— comment them to this post and I’ll credit you in Part 2.
Don’t let up on your shine,
—Adam Powers