Get Turned Off

Here’s the Thing:

Turn off 1 light bulb.

There have to be a million reasons to use less energy. I’ll give you four.

Goodnight my banjo buddy.

#1, unless your landlord is picking up your electricity bill, it costs you money. A kilowatt/hour saved is a kilowatt/hour earned.

#2, the energy we use in our homes is generated at power plants far, far away, often using oil that comes from even farther. Americans like to talk nervously about “our dependence on foreign oil.” Less energy = less “dependence.”

#3, burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) pollutes the environment. The less energy we use, the less fossil fuel we burn, the less pollution spews into our skies — and lungs.

#4, and probably most important by far, is that burning fossil fuels to generate electricity releases carbon dioxide into the air, and carbon dioxide is causing climate change and all its very serious consequences. I’ll go more deeply into climate change in a future posting, I promise. For now let’s leave it at this: our kids will thank us profusely someday for anything we do now to slow the pace of climate change. Really, we’re talking profusely here — did you get that? Profusely.

According to this sweet “Carbon Footprint” calculator from the Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition, which allows you to calculate just how much carbon dioxide you’re adding to the atmosphere each year, a single 60-watt light bulb used 4 hours per day generates 93 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

Is there a light on in your home right now that you don’t need? How about taking a moment to switch it off. Go now. It’s okay, we’ll wait…

Or better yet, do what Ken Kitson is doing: offer your kid a few cents for each light he or she turns off when no one’s in the room.