It's high noon, a drop of sweat slides down my brow, and I enter the gauntlet. Between the detectors, past the plaster walls and into the stacks I stride. Thousands of book titles try to catch my attention from either side, but I stare straight ahead, completely focused. A yellow tape arrow under my foot directs me as I swing a sharp left. More books pass by unnoticed before I swing a sharp right, bringing my target into view. Someone's coming right at me, but I pay him no heed. Just before we slam into each other, I swivel my shoulders sideways so that I slip by, barely missing him, all the time keeping my eyes locked on my target: the two lightswitches on either side of the last row of books -- the only two switches along that path that can be operated manually.
I pace forward, hands at my side, ready to draw. Three stacks to go two stacks one stack. I wait until my body is directly between the two, then without breaking stride my hands shoot out from their holsters, each landing on the cool plastic of one of the switches. My head snaps left, then right, checking if there is anyone searching for one of the barely used books in those two half stacks. There never has been. My body is now two feet past the switches, but I'm still looking coolly forward. Just at the last second, my hands slide down, shutting off those unused lights as I coast into the Berry lobby: mission accomplished.
"Isn't this guy going just a bit too far?" you're thinking.
No, and I'll tell you why: I've checked out those lights -- on each side are three fluorescent bulbs, using a total of 168 watts of electricity whenever they're on. Observation has shown me that once I turn those lights off, they stay off till the library opens the next morning at 8 a.m., when my unknown arch nemesis must dutifully turn them on again. If it weren't for my daily vigilance, I have no reason to believe those lights would ever be turned off, meaning that whenever I flick those switches at noon, I'm reducing their on-time by 20 hours. Multiplying 168 watts by 20 hours a day and 365 days a year, then dividing by 1,000 means that I'm saving 1,372 kilowatt hours of electricity in a year. That comes out to a savings of 8.5 lbs. of sulfur dioxide (a gas that contributes to acid rain and smog), 2.6 lbs. of nitrogen oxides (gases that also contribute to acid rain and smog), and 2,042 lbs. of carbon dioxide (a gas, the abundance of which is responsible for global warming), all without breaking stride.
But let's not stop there! There are 4,100 of us. If each of us could find even just a two-bulb fluorescent light, which uses 60 watts of electricity, and turn it off for an extra three hours a day, then in one year we'd save 270,000 kilowatts of electricity, 1,674 lbs of sulfur dioxide, 513 lbs of nitrogen oxides and 201 tons of carbon dioxide!
Dartmouth has done some pretty great things to reduce energy use: almost every light on campus is a highly efficient fluorescent bulb; new buildings must meet high performance standards; electricity is cogenerated at the college heating plant; the list is long. But the College still uses 47 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year, dumping into the atmosphere 168 tons of sulfur dioxide, 51 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 31,200 tons of carbon dioxide. I'm not writing this to say that there is nothing more the College administration can do to reduce the use of electricity, but I would like to emphasize that this problem cannot be tackled without help from every member of the community: every one of us has the ability and the responsibility to save an incredible amount of electricity and drastically reduce environmental destruction.
New stickers are going up all over campus this week, asking for lights to be turned off. The SPARC program (save power and receive cash) is continuing this term -- the dorm that reduces the most energy between April 24 and May 13 will get a free massage/pizza night. So let's get to it. Flick off a switch 'cause the stickers are stylin'. Turn your computer off at night so you can win a massage. Reduce energy use because global warming and acid rain are real problems that are destroying the environment, and because there can be no solution to these problems while you and I continue to waste. Or do it for the reason I do it: pick a mission for yourself and save energy in style because it makes you feel so cool.
