Let's take ACTION...

I recently stumbled onto a link about Blog Action Day. It just so happened to be today as well. So I clicked and decided to see what it is all about. It seems this organization is of the environmental nature, I have always enjoyed the environment. Sure, I'm no tree-hugger or vegetarian but I love our planet's resources and appreciate the overwhelming beauty in it. The objective of Blog Action Day was to focus on topics surrounding our individual views on the environment. That my friends, is what I will attempt to do here today. Almost completely improvised, as I just found out about this minutes ago. For more information visit: www.blogactionday.org

I don't write with a theme in this blog, there are only 3 other entries after all... Picking a subject is almost difficult, I am sitting here wondering what to even start about. I look around my office, and it hits me. Turn off the light! We've got a track of 5 GE 65V incandescent light bulbs here in the office near the restroom. An area located near an empty desk, the fridge and a filing cabinet. Not a very busy portion of the room. It's lit with a fair amount of ambient light, as well as the 5 lights above when necessary. Necessary, often a misused word. In this case, I see these lights on more than they ought to be, so I turn them off a few times a week. Sometimes they stay off, sometimes they will get turned back on. I try to let people know that they aren't being used, so just leave them off. I figure it'll save the company a few bucks as well.

Here's a formula to see how much we might be spending:

Cost = (wattage of bulb) ÷ (1,000) x (hours per days in use) x (365 days/year) x (cost per kilowatt hour)
(65) ÷ (1,000) x (9) x (260) x ($0.2284)
Total: $34.74
Light track total: $173.70
Source (page 3 of the PDF).

Even further in the lighting category are the new Quantam dot LED lights. Switching out just one of these can save $30 off your annual electric bill. Imagine switching out an entire house/office worth. Compact fluorescent lights have been around for a short while now, even those can help keep half a ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is: If you're going to keep an unnecessary light on all the time, make it one that won't hurt both the environment and your wallet.