Monday, April 30, 2007
SUNRISE AGAINST BULBS
Following the SMH’s triumphant darkening experiment, we now have this:
City skylines filled with burning bright lights will be a thing of the past if Sunrise and the Australian Conservation Foundation have their way.
Lights Off Australia will take place on the first Wednesday of every month.
Companies taking part need to switch off any non-essential lights when they finish work on that day. Residents are asked to go without one light they’d otherwise have on.
Via Paul Bickford, who presents a Sunrise-themed poll. In other illumination news, Mark Steyn reports:
In the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, Sen. Barack Obama was asked what he personally was doing to save the environment, and replied that his family was “working on” changing their light bulbs.
Is this the new version of the old joke? How many senators does it take to “work on” changing a light bulb? One to propose a bipartisan commission. One to threaten to de-fund the light bulbs. One to demand the impeachment of Bush and Cheney for keeping us all in the dark. One to vote to pull out the first of the light bulbs by fall of this year with a view to getting them all pulled out by the end of 2008.
UPDATE. Sir Nicholas Stern is “moving towards” low-energy lightbulbs. Sir Nick sounds kinda low-energy himself.