Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
Not many things anger me anymore. I realized some years ago that getting angry over certain things was useless, unproductive and more detrimental to me than anyone else. This revelation enabled me to give up road rage, break free from an unhappy relationship and realize the amazing benefits of deep breaths. The only drawback is that when I ridded myself of one emotion, I replaced it with another: annoyance.
Instead of shouting my feelings erratically, as I was used to doing, I now have them brewing inside me. Unfortunately, a situation I have been witnessing on campus for the last two years has become such a source of contention for me that it has all my emotions out of whack, and I am at the breaking point. I am here to ask students, teachers and employees at the University of Maine: Is there a reason you leave all the lights on?
Each and every day, I walk around my regularly scheduled program on campus and am constantly shutting off lights. I wake in the morning to leave my resident hall apartment and on my way out open the door to the recycling room to shut off the light, which has no doubt been on all night. I then make my way to Nutting Hall for my first class and purposely steer towards the one-stall bathroom, which is usually always empty, and shut off that light. I head upstairs to my first class and on my way shut off two lights in the small study rooms that are usually empty.
After class, I wait until everyone leaves to ensure that the light will be shut off – there is not another class after mine. Next, I direct myself toward the Hitchner computer lab, making sure to pass both the department’s snack and copy rooms because those lights are usually always left on. On other days, I am turning off the light in the bathroom of York Commons; the copy room in Deering Hall which, even after I turn off, will be on again when I leave class to use the toilet. I turn off all the lights in Little Hall, since each empty classroom usually has them all on. I could go on and on and on. No matter how many little CommonCents stickers are placed above the light switches that read, “Please shut off lights,” they are ineffective in changing behavior.
I am well aware that ignorance is bliss and, as awful as it sounds, sometimes I wish I were ignorant. The cognizance I possess is rather a curse, but wake up people – it is time for your conscience to come to the forefront. I imagine all of you do not realize what you are doing, and if you do then I am going to go out on a Fascist limb here and say we rid the world of you.
We acquired the lights-on habit during times of cheap electric bills and when climate change was shown only on the brows of a few eccentric scientists. Yet we continue to walk Zombie-like throughout our days without any conscious thought of consequences. I implore all of you to make an effort to use that little finger of yours and practice the up and down motions of shutting light switches on and off. Have you seen the beauty of land stripped for coal? I have.
Ironically, Thomas Edison once said, “Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.”
Jaime Larese has got a bright idea: Stop wasting electricity.
Bangor Daily News