5 November 2007

How to educate them?

A small anecdote first.

When I was staying at Balaji's room, after all my day's work, I used to lie in the bed and read for sometime. Once I become sleepy, I would just close the book, switch off the light and dive deep to sleep. The thing I'd hated most was getting up from there.

Unfortunately, on most of the nights, just when I switch off the light, through the small gap below the door, I'd see lights from the corridor. Cursing myself and the person who never bothered to switch off the light, I'd go and switch it off.

Many times, I had decided not to get up - what may come. Still, I'd be not able to stay and not switch off that light.
(The thing to notice here is that the lights in the corridor were actually sound/movement sensitive - when there is someone in the corridor, they turn on automatically. It was on top of this, they wanted to keep it burning all the time -- even during day time!)

Nothing has changed since then - except the place I live.

Every evening, from 6-11 whenever I go to the kitchen in my wing, I switch off a minimum of 3 lights. Anyone who's coming there first turns them on and never turns them off!

Many of the days, I'll have to do the same in the morning too. Since I am the one who gets up first in the wing, the burning lights mean that they were "on" all the night.

How can I educate my wing mates? Do you think some poster(s) can do the trick? If yes, please give me a few links to some good posters - against energy wastage and also for anti--global_warming.

I confess that I have a couple of lights in my room - I want my room to be very well lit. Especially during the winter times when the days are too short and also gloomy. Not all of them are power saving bulbs (they are way too costly for me right now).

At least I make sure that they are not in use when I am out. I make sure that my system is sleeping most of the time. I don't keep my heater on when I am not there.

It's already too late to take measures against all these. Educate your friends/family/neighbors everybody -- and yourself too.
Save energy -- save yourself. (My home in Kerala is in the tropics and it is expected to have about 5-10 degrees of temperature rise in a couple of decades there in the tropics. The majority of the readers of this blog should have to think of relocating themselves and their near&dear to some cooler place ... OR start rescuing the planet right now.)

Signing off, Sands.

I am just against wastage. If you need 100 bulbs burning in your room while you are reading, or if you want a car for transportation, go ahead do it. But make sure that those lights are off when you are away and also the car is in perfect condition so that there is no wastage.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

well written, Sandeep. It's the need of the hour. We should do that and should teach others too.

Amma.

Hailstone said...

Chetta,
I too have the same problem. Nobody in my class(except 1/2) take care to switch off the fan and light after the class. I used to make sure that all lights are off when they are not in use and ask others to do the same.
But no use!! Some of them started calling me 'energy conservation girl'!!

--Priyakutty.

Unknown said...

I think, it is a good idea to take a printout (in large font size) about some facts, and paste it wherever necessary - at least in classrooms (in Priya's case). A good percentage of people are ignorant about such facts. Those who care, fall into the countable group. The rest are arrogant!

Though the following is more about CFLs, it gives some useful information.
http://benningtonenergy.org/faq.php

You can find many such on the web.

Sands | കരിങ്കല്ല് said...

I was thinking about some posters. They might not be very useful after the first one week (and the people whom I am talking about are not very comfortable with English - otherwise I'd have already taught them a lesson)

Should do something.

Priyakkutty.. keep up the good work. Don't worry aboyut what they call - it's anyway good :)

Sands.