sally header2

Monday, October 15, 2007

Blog Action Day

The Blog Action Day website has a bunch of suggestions of small changes you can make to help the ol' environmental cause.
There are a lot of good ones that V and I try to instill in our lives like carpooling when schedules allow, unplugging appliances, and making sure we always have our non-disposable coffee cups. Others (recycling, washing clothes in cold water, lowering the thermostat) are just things we do without thinking about it.
#6 on this list is 'Turn off the lights'. At home, we are pretty good about this (although some of our aquarium lights do stay on all day). Most of our lights are the energy saver ones too. What I wanted to draw attention to is the lights in public places that unnecessarily stay on all the time. Must empty classrooms have the lights on from 7am till who knows when in the evening every day? Hallways often don't have accessible light switches in the first place and could be a safety concern. But the bathrooms? It might be inconvenient or strange at first to have to switch the lights on in the bathrooms but we are all used to doing it at home. A number of colleagues even leave office lights a-blazing when they leave for 5 minute walks down the hall to hours away in their labs!
I am going to try to make sure that my classroom and office lights are off when they are not being used and I urge others to do the same, if you don't already. Environmental responsibility may start with these small steps, but the small steps can be taken in all aspects of our lives.

Labels:

4 Comments:

Blogger a/k/a Nadine said...

I was thinking about the lights at my office yesterday. We can turn most of them off, but some of them stay on 24 hours a day. Way too many. Why? I dunno.

8:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You can use the extra material from the skirt to make napkins! Just cut them square and hem the edge.

Mom

11:50 AM  
Blogger Mr. McCarthy said...

I thought you weren't supposed to turn off florescent lights if you're just going to turn them back on 5 minutes later?

you can also save energy by wearing your underwear for several days before washing them.

11:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The lights in the classrooms in my school are on sensors. Its actually really annoying. When i sit at my desks the lights go off and I have to keep getting up to get them back on. After a while it starts shutting off every minute or two (no exaggeration. Some times it goes off after 30 seconds)It is pretty ridiculous to try to get work done.

8:13 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home