How towns and cities could cut energy use, greenhouse gasses, and save money — painlessly
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007by ken winston caine
Towns and cities could cut electricity use significantly — simply and painlessly.
Almost overnight.
All they have to do is to commit to quit trying to light up the night as though it is day.
Turn off, or turn down, street lighting, building lighting and after-hours electric signs on businesses. (This was decreed by President Nixon as national policy during the first oil embargo in 1973, alongside more drastic measures such as gas rationing and a national 55 mph speed limit.)
Cutting street lighting has been shown to CUT crime. (More on that in a moment.)
Bring back the night.
Bring back the stars.
If cities would turn off just every other streetlight, on alternating sides of the street, immediately they would cut streetlighting energy use in half. And cut the cost of streetlighting in half.
Why is no one thinking like this at a time when greenhouse gasses produced by coal-and-other-carbon-fuel-fired power plants are destroying the planet’s equilibrium and by extension, our current and future quality of life … and simultaneously, world-wide, we are facing an energy shortage?
Instead, power companies are calling for more power plants and, at the same time, (more…)
