Budget-weary and environmentally-aware townspeople heard a lot of discouraging news at Town Meeting about municipal energy use. They heard that the Department of Public Works building consumes 700 gallons of heating oil every two weeks. And that highway trucks occupy a garage that’s kept almost as warm as many of our houses. They heard that the fire chief’s SUV spends a lot of time idling, and that many Harvard schoolchildren go to school in winter in short-sleeve shirts because their classrooms are so hot. The overall impression was that the town has a long way to go in grappling with runaway energy costs, and that the process has not even begun. And if people needed more evidence, they had only to step outside the school at lunch break. There, parked outside, sat Harvard’s brand-new ambulance, open for visitors with its motor running. Maybe the idea was to provide warmth for the EMTs who were acting as hosts. But the timing, for many shell-shocked townspeople walking by, couldn’t have been worse.