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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLights out – France to force shops and offices to go dark overnight
I've posted about this before. The French must have been listening!
Given the pictures of Beijing in another thread, and posts about So. Cal. in that same thread, I think this is an idea whose time has come. Why does a business need to be brightly lit after hours? How much energy could be saved by turning lights off the way our parents used to tell us to do when we left a room? I live in a small mountain resort town where the sidewalks are rolled up at about 7 during the off season periods. You couldn't tell it though by driving down "The Boulevard". It's lit up like Vegas, inside and out. I drive down the street and wonder: why?
My thoughts are thus... How about we subsidize the purchase of motion sensors for the inside areas and require businesses that are closed during nighttime hours to turn off their signage? Imagine how beneficial that would be for the environment seeing as how doing it in France can save 250,000 tons of CO2/year and enough energy to light 750,000 households for a whole year? We have almost five times the population of France. Do the math.
This is truly a SIMPLE SIMPLE thing that can be done "locally" and have a major impact.
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MadHound
(34,179 posts)And they decide whether or not to leave their lights on, guilt and pollution free.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)In some parts of the Pacific Northwest, solar power isn't 100% feasible anyway, I'd think.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)Especially if you made it nationwide, and combined it with other renewables. It has been known for a while now that we can switch to green renewables, completely, fully, to energize this entire country. But the fossil fuel barons aren't going to allow that to happen, since it threatens their money making machine.
The incentives are weak, and as you pointed out, rather spotty. Now with the supposedly cheap gusher of natural gas and oil coming from fracking, the push for renewables once again fades into the background.
Thus we're going to continue down this path of fossil fuel insanity, until it destroys us all.
Warpy
(111,292 posts)so that smash & grab thieves can be spotted by passing patrol cars. I wonder if that might be different in France, if they leave the lights blazing all night as some sort of advertisement.
As for offices, most of the ones I've worked in have been dark unless the cleaning staff were working in them overnight. Maybe that's different, too, thinking all those lights on in all the buildings are pretty. Well, they are, but unless there is a reason for them to be on, they're killing our planet.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)from the people the businesses screwed during the day.
(Apparent paranoia is often justified.)
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)from people who can't resist breaking windows and stealing stuff when it's dark and no one's around.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)While I'm driving my beat after dark, any light INSIDE a business is a reason to investigate because of the motion sensors.
On the other hand, if every business has lights on inside after dark, I drive past dozens of places every night being vandalized by the patrons they screwed during the day.
Win. Win.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)It's pretty scary walking through a dark office late at night to get to the parking lot.
The corollary to this, of course, is that potential criminals will know precisely which offices are unoccupied, because they will be dark.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)I am pondering something too long, they go out! I just have to wave a hand and boom, they go back on.
Green building. We did get some sort of incentives to do it.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,330 posts)http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/30/lights-out-france-shops-offices
Response to cherokeeprogressive (Original post)
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