Dear funeral home,
Every night I look out my window from across the street and see over 60 different light bulbs, glistening in our beautiful summer rain.
While I enjoy the slight twinkle, I have to question why you need so many lights on throughout the night. You are in a residential area, not a carnival.
It is absurd that in this day and age, a company would be so oblivious to the effects of such decorative waste.
Do the math. leave just 1 or 2 lights on if you need to, and pass the savings on to the vulnerable people you exploit in their time of need.
—buried in bulbs
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2009.
Businesses keep their lights on for security reasons. Much easier to see B&E artists.
Can you imagine the legal action the OP would take against the business if he wandered onto their property and tripped due to inadequate lighting?
And you think the business will pass along the savings if they save money on their NSP bills?? Ha! Walmart has almost 40% of their lighting turned off to conserve power (and reduce the load on the AC units) but I doubt we’ll see the savings from their lower power bills next time we go shopping.
i agree with the OB – instead of trying to conserve energy (as everyone should be doing), some businesses, like car dealerships and so on, keep their properties lit up like a friggin operating theatre. it would make better sense to use fewer lights that are properly aimed/shrouded so that the light goes ONLY where it is needed, instead of flooding the entire neighbourhood (and people’s bedroom windows) in WASTED light/energy.
there’s already way too much light pollution, and it would be nice to look up and actually be able to see the night sky.
Then move to the country.
@Bro Tim – oh my, aren’t you ‘clever’. pffft… how about contributing something useful to the discussion, instead of just being a sarcastic bitch?
light pollution/waste can be a problem, and some cities in north america are starting to take it seriously. it doesn’t require a genius to design lighting that is appropriate for a specific area, instead of flooding entire neighbourhoods in high intensity/halogen lighting, which is wasteful and certainly not necessary.
I lived on Kent Street during the Hurricane Juan blackouts and what a nice treat it was to have the Sobeys, Superstore and Port lighting go dark and be able to stare at the stars overhead.
I think there is a way to come to a happy solution to the needs of the business and not flooding your residential neighbours with bright lights. A proper lighting plan done by an experienced lighting engineer is a good start.
it’s actually quite simple to fix – just install shrouds on existing (overhead) fixtures so that the light is aimed in a downward direction, instead of bleeding out to the sides… and all over the neighbourhood.
urban planners are now taking light pollution more seriously (finally) and designing modern lighting systems that take light pollution into consideration and its negative impact on neighbourhoods.
high intensity halogen lights, for example, are often not necessary for most situations, particularly when more efficient and less offensive lighting, such as sodium vapour lamps (similar to street lighting), can be used instead, installed with proper shrouds to aim the light where it’s needed.
prob so they can see what there doing!