This is great.
The story I read earlier today said that the Church was planning on turning off lights on Temple Square.
Reading some numbers about what a difference five light bulbs can make multiplied by lots of people gives me more motivation to be more careful about turning off lights. You know, sometimes it feels like our little efforts aren't really a drop in the bucket, but if we all do a little....
M&M, they did turn out the lights. Turned 'em out in the Church Office Building, too, by flipping some sort of a master switch. Only thing is, when I went into the Archives today, all the lights were on. ALL of them. Even the several dozen over the reading room, which are usually turned off so that you can see microfilm. That couldn't be changed until the Physical Facilities guys made it around to work in the electrical closets. Since the lights were turned off during a time when the building is ordinarily dark and empty (except for janitorial and security people), I'm betting that it cost more energy in the long run to burn all those extra lights all those hours. Not to mention the number of hours of work I lost today because I couldn't read the films.
ReplyDeleteSo you are saying that because of that master switch shutoff, when they turned the lights back on, more than the usual came back on?
ReplyDeleteBummer. I guess we can only give credit for the thought. Might be a learning experience if something like that was ever needed, no?
Thanks for sharing. :)
Yes -- the master switch is apparently all or nothing. When they turned it back on, *everything* came on until the guys could get around to all the floors and departments to reset things manually. Bummer.
ReplyDeleteThe Church does try to cooperate with these civic ideas. When there is a push to conserve water because of breaks in the city's culinary water, they turn off the fountains (even though water for the fountains is continually recirculated and draws on the culinary system only for evaporation replacement), and the cafeteria uses plastic cups and flatware rather than dishes that need to be washed.
I do think they could go back to pushbrooms to remove leaves and dirt from the plazas, though, instead of those awful and inefficient gas-powered blowers (ever watch somebody chase a single leaf across a city block with one of those things? I have). They began putting up Christmas lights on Temple Square last week -- that's one place I hope energy conservation doesn't impact.
That's kind of a funny story, I have to say, even though it was a bummer.
ReplyDeleteI have this image now of someone chasing after a single leaf with a blower. What a way to start my day with a grin.
And amen to the hope that conservation doesn't affect the Christmas lights. It's hard to believe we are getting to that time of year again, though, isn't it?