Finding folks to go green is a tough sell

It began as a fun way to teach conservation skills: Find three Medford families to cut back on their energy consumption and award a prize to the family that saves the most.

But now, Donald Kelley, creator of a reality show on the city's cable access channel, is facing what many others in conservation circles have already found: Getting people to cut their energy use is very difficult.

"We are still looking for families," Kelley said on Monday, as his video crew created a public service announcement in front of a gasoline station in downtown Medford.

The show is ready to roll. The crew is lined up, and a host has been selected. But when only one family expressed interest in participating, Kelley launched a more aggressive publicity campaign.

He's hoping that the announcements and other publicity will spur at least three, but hopefully many more Medford families to compete in the three-month challenge.

Kelley is at a loss to explain the lack of response, although City Council president Robert Maiocco speculates that people probably aren't signing up simply because they don't know about it.

"They've just got to get the word out," said Maiocco, who said he's intrigued by the program's concept. "They should probably come to the City Council and tap into the people at Tufts."

Several months ago, Kelley, who operates a Medford-based business that creates educational software, was thinking about an inconsistency he sees in America: We know we use too much energy, but don't seem willing or able to take steps to reduce our usage.

"Most people know that fluorescent bulbs use a quarter of the electricity that a normal bulb uses, so why aren't they using them more?" he said in a recent telephone interview. "Why do people struggle with this?"

He hopes to find an answer with "Energy Smackdown," a cable show that will chronicle the lives of three ordinary families as they compete to use the least amount of energy.

As the families weigh their trash, calculate their vehicle miles, and tally the kilowatt hours they used in the previous week, a video crew will be there, capturing it all. Later, viewers will watch the families' efforts on TV3 and the Internet.

In exchange for participating, families will have energy experts sent to their homes to offer them an energy-efficiency critique, and the winning family will be served dinner by the other families at City Hall.

"Our goal is to get at least three good families to start," he said.

But that has proven a lot tougher than expected.

The qualifications are simple. The families must be from Medford and must want to compete. And Kelley is quick to note that he's not looking for the most environmentally friendly of clans, either.

"They are more interesting if they haven't got it all figured out," he said.

But so far, the producers have just one family.

Claudia Diaz said that a few days after she and her husband, John Vasilakis, watched Al Gore's global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," she saw an advertisement for "Energy Smackdown" on TV3 and called right away.

"We really want to learn how to start conserving energy," said Diaz, 33, the mother of a 3-year-old daughter.

Diaz, who oversees drug trials for a pharmaceutical company, said Gore's documentary left her wondering what she could do to curb her energy use.

"A piece that was missing from the movie was how each family can make a difference," she said.

To attract more families, Kelley and his crew are ramping up recruitment efforts and placing public service announcements on TV3.

With each spot, they remind viewers that while Americans represent 5 percent of the Earth's population, we use 25 percent of its energy resources.

And, they add, if we don't change our ways, we will pay a very steep price. Some energy analysts predict that energy costs will increase about 30 percent in the next few years.

Also, there's the issue of climate change, and the impact it's expected to have on regional fishing and farming industries.

"It is not a joke," Energy Smackdown host John Herman reminds people. "We need to find new and better sources of energy while also addressing demand."

But, as Kelley points out, there is plenty of cutting-edge, energy-saving technology available to the public, but people aren't embracing it. So he's hoping that by making conservation fun, people will embrace it.

"We've got the technology, but people aren't using it."

Christine McConville's e-mail is cmcconville@globe.com.