On Thursday evening, the Eiffel tower will go dark, turning off its light for five minutes to save energy. The reason for this is to bring attention to the issue of global warming.
This frugal move will extinguish, at least temporarily, the more than 20,000 flashing lights on the Eiffel Tower. The lights will all be shut off just hours before a long-anticipated report on the seriousness of global warming.
According to the Associated Press,
“The darkening of the landmark in the City of Light comes at the urging of environmental activists and is timed to coincide with Friday’s release of the major report warning that Earth will keep getting warmer and presenting new evidence of humanity’s role in climate change.
“Ahead of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, pressure is building on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to convene an emergency summit of world leaders aimed at breaking a deadlock over cutting greenhouse gases.”
While this is more of a conservation issue rather than a frugal one, you can see how closely the two subjects are linked. Being frugal saves money and resources, both for our families and the world at large.
Frugal families tend to conserve resources, whether those resources are tangible consumer goods, such as clothing, or energy sources. We tend to adopt practices such as hanging out the wash, growing our own food, reusing bags and other items that would normally be thrown away, and recycling through freecycle, donation and thrift store shopping.
Instead of throwing out a shirt, for example, we get out our sewing and mend it. Instead of buying a book and tossing it when we are done, we visit the library. And, we always shut off our lights when they are not in use. Many of us have even replace traditional lighting with Compact Florescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) or even LED lights. We recognize that we have so much and only need so much to live happy lives.
Perhaps the Eiffel Tower (which may actually expend more energy turning the lights back on than it saved) and the World can take some lesson in that.
What do you think?
To learn more about the release of the global warming report, you can click here.
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