Lights Out Utah

Utah announced a rally called Lights Out Utah. It involved many different organizations and asked that Utahns turn off their unnecessary lights from 9 to 10 pm on Wednesday, September 19. I was really excited to hear about it, as it was an easy way for people to show their support for reducing energy consumption. The University of Utah pledged to turn off their lights for this time, as did Temple Square and the state capitol. Brian and I decided to turn off our lights and then walk up the trails around Red Butte Garden to see the lights go out in the city.

Unfortunately, it was pretty big disappointment. http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695211932,00.html
There was very little difference. The news reported that this was due to an increase in air conditioning use, but from the hill east of Salt Lake it didn't appear to be much darker than normal. Of course, street lights stayed on, which diminishes the effect of turning off residential lights. But overall, it seemed that people didn't really care. I thought it was great that Temple Square and the state capitol did turn their lights off, even if the University of Utah didn't turn off their stadium lights (which they said they would do). It was interesting to note that the wealthier neighborhoods in Salt Lake City proper were darker than other neighborhoods around the city. Could that be because they are generally non-LDS and often more liberal? I really don't want to criticize, but I do think that energy consumption is an issue that needs to be addressed, and I think that predominantly conservative folks need to stop viewing this as a Democrat or Liberal issue and start viewing it as a non-partisan issue. How many times are we going to make the convenient choice at the cost of the world around us? (And I am not sitting on a high horse about this, I need to do much, much more than I am currently doing.)

Anyway, to all of you that turn off lights, install energy efficient bulbs, recycle and install swamp coolers instead of air conditioning units--thank you for the good example.

In the picture, the dark area at the bottom of the picture is uninhabited mountain--so it may look dark, but that is a dark area anyway.