I came across an interesting post the other day. It was a pretty sternly focused post on our environment. The gist of it was that we are rapidly destroying so many aspects of our planet, that we are rushing towards our own demise. Rather than applying bandaids to the planet, we needed to perform major surgery, and do so quickly. The author talked about how many of our tiny fixes for large problems just made us feel better about doing something, even though our efforts would accomplish only slightly more than doing nothing. One comment that stuck in my mind (as an eco-friendly lighting provider) was the following “forget compact fluorescents, just turn off the lights”. I had to think about this for a while to see where this was going. I came up with the following take on this comment. If you’re using too much of something, perhaps just using it more efficiently is simply not enough. Perhaps you need to do both? ie, use less and what you use, use more efficiently. Perhaps we can’t go on leading our lives like nothing was going wrong? Perhaps we will ultimately need to change our own habits? I know this thought scares many people. So much so, that they actually feel compelled to disparage the environmental movement. I know I have made many ‘green’ changes in my lifestyle over the last several years. We recycle almost everything, use far less water, drive less, etc. There is, however, one change that frightens me so much, that I just look the other way and pretend I’m completely unaware of it… going vegan. I know that it takes 10x as many resources to produce a pound of beef as it does a pound of grain. However, meat consumption is so ingrainded in our lives, that the thought of such a drastic change is nearly impossible to take seriously.
Ok, so I’m not suggesting that you give up your favorite foods and live in the dark. However, I would suggest that each of us could take some time to periodically review our own actions. In many cases, there are more efficient and environmentally friendly things that we can do to improve conditions on our planet without making drastic sacrifices. Lighting, for example is one area where major savings can be achieved without much difficulty. First off, switching from incandescent light bulbs to LED or compact fluorescent light bulbs is a simple and effective change. No pain involved, just instant energy savings. Next up, how about installing motion sensors to control your outdoor lighting? This is another way to have as much light outdoors as is required, but only using it when and if necessary. Full cut-off, down light only fixtures are another. What is gained by shining light up into the night sky and contributing to light pollution? Or into the neighbor’s windows? Not much in a positive sense. There are many places where immprovements can be made. How many others can you come up with?
