You cannot go into a building without seeing them. The signs urging students to save energy by closing doors after ourselves are prominently displayed almost everywhere on campus. But amazingly, after walking around campus at night, these buildings are almost entirely illuminated, with at least half of the classrooms entirely lit.
Admittedly, keeping the hallways of buildings lit can be an important safety measure and now, more than ever, this is a paramount value in our campus consciousness. But leaving classroom lights on is excessive and just plain irresponsible.
Arguably, leaving these lights on during the middle of the night when no one is (or at least should be) on campus is much more costly than leaving a door open. It is we, the students and taxpayers, who have to foot the bill.
Faculty offices seem to be the biggest offenders when it comes to energy consumption. While our professors may be hard at work during the day, they more than likely are not working at midnight. Yet, their lights remain on during the late hours of the night.
Instead of leaving these signs in areas frequented by students, maybe they should be plastered throughout faculty offices and hallways.
It was only two years ago that California was in the middle of an energy crisis, with our energy turning off without notice and Enron sucking the money out of the pocketbooks of poor Californian grandmothers. We need to conserve our resources and it seems that the burden is misplaced with students.
It is the university staff who are lagging behind in the effort to conserve university resources and funds. The cost of leaving a door open is miniscule when compared to the amount of lights being left on.
So for those of us who feel compelled to monitor our energy consumption on campus, don’t feel so bad. Our university staff isn’t nearly as vigilant.
Lauren Williams is a junior journalism and political science major and the opinion editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
