The Lights are On, But No One's Home
Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant
Q: How many newly-green Americans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: It doesn’t really matter. Not when corporations in big cities all across the U.S. are leaving hundreds of millions of lights on all night long.
I bring this up because I recently spent two nights in a hotel in downtown Philadelphia, PA (Motto: We’ve got the Liberty Bell and King Tut! You decide.) On my last night there, I woke up at 3 a.m. – I blame the jalapeno pizza. Not wanting to wake my neighbors by showering or turning on late-night TV infomercials for food choppers or ab machines or food choppers that double as ab machines, I decided to look out my 25th floor window instead. For almost fifteen minutes I stared at the pretty twinkling lights in the rain.
It was sight to behold. Thousands and thousands of lit-up office windows in skyscrapers all around me. I stared hard into the closest building, scouring the 20-27th floors for any sign of life. I couldn’t spot a single soul working late into the night: nary an office worker, cleaning person, or even a late-night thief. Who then, are the lights on for?
I used to work in a tall office building when I had a real job long long ago in Houston, Texas. So I know that the people in charge of facilities management always have a good excuse for everything they do. For example, none of the windows in most Houston office buildings open because “Allowing in fresh air actually costs more then running the air conditioner 24/7.” I know it sounds illogical, but when it’s typed up neatly in Chapter 11-7d.24 in the policy handbook, it must be true. Just like that other section in Chapter 2-3b.14 that says “Sexual harassment is prohibited.” When you find your boss staring down your blouse with his hand on your knee, you can bet is must be something else, maybe part of the benefits package.
So there must be good reasons the lights are left on in office buildings. The two main reasons I’ve heard are:
1. "We need them on for the cleaning crews." Wow, imagine the mess employees leave behind if the cleaning crews must work on all floors in all offices all night long. I could understand if the staff consisted of monkeys throwing poo at the windows all day, but white collar workers in suits and ties, pantyhose and heels? How messy could they possibly be?
2. "We need the lights on for security." Maybe I’ve watched too many Tom Cruise movies, but aren’t there better ways to secure a building? Motion-activated sensors? Badge-operated locks on the doors? Monkeys flinging poo at trespassers?
The problem is huge. Satellite photos of the earth at night show just how much of our planet is ablaze with light. Even if does say “Let there be light” in the Bible, does anyone think all night long is a good idea?
Maybe I’m more sensitive to this issue because my dad was a stickler for turning the lights out as you left a room. Sure, he also cut my hair with a colander on my head, but you can’t be wrong 100% of the time. As a result of his prodding, and fifteen years of bad haircuts, I always turn out the lights when I’m not using them. It just makes sense. Just like I turn my car off when I’m not driving it and I turn my brain off when I watch TV.
What will it take to convince corporate America see the light and switch it off? Increased awareness? Legislation? Taxes on night-time electricity use? Something needs to be done to help us take back the night. I’m willing to send in the monkeys if I have to.
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Mar 3, '07
I've also heard the explanation that tall buildings leave lights on the upper floors so that airplane pilots can see the buildings. Although they fly by instruments, there are times that just plain being able to see the buildings can avoid catastrophe. (This, btw, from a commercial pilot for a large airline). I don't know if it is true or not, but I don't have any particular reason to doubt this fellow as we've been friends for a long time.
Mar 3, '07
I have also heard that the flourescent lights used in office buildings take a lot power to start but practically nothing to run. Thus if the lights are going to be on say 6 am to 1 am anyway it actually saves electricity to leave them on. Thats the excuse anyway. Wonder if it's true?
Greg C
Mar 3, '07
Whatever you do, don't go to Las Vegas.
8:02 p.m.
Mar 3, '07
Here's a link to a discussion of how much electricity it takes to turn on a fluorescent light along with other cost tradeoffs. The rule of thumb I used to hear 20 years ago about office fluorescents was that if you would need to turn the light back on in less than an hour then leave it on. According to the link above the rule of thumb is now 15-20 minutes. Bulb life is more of a factor in that than direct electricity use.
Mar 3, '07
The other explanation I recall hearing is that they are left on to heat the building. (I have never noticed if they stay on during 85degree summer nights.)
Thanks JK
Mar 4, '07
Most office buildings only leave the lights on the exterior sides for the pretty effect at night. It's all about show. I can't imagine looking at a dark downtown skyline at night! It just wouldn't be right.
8:25 a.m.
Mar 4, '07
The other explanation I recall hearing is that they are left on to heat the building.
That's nonsensical. Office buildings typically have sophisticated climate control systems and it would make no sense to subvert them by heating with the lighting. Besides, the reason fluorescent lights are so energy efficient is that, unlike incandescents, they produce very little heat.
We used to keep things from freezing up in the pump house in the winter with a 100 watt incandescent left on overnight--don't try that with a compact fluorescent.
Mar 4, '07
The airplane theory would be more convincing if what we saw was buildings with maybe half the lights on on the top floor and a corner office lit on every third floor.
I know that at my last three employers, where I was/am frequently the last one out of the office -- an entire floor or half a floor -- I had/have no idea how to turn off the lights for the central cube farm, even if we were careful to shut them down in the small offices and conference rooms where that was possible.
Mar 4, '07
A memo circulated in our office building (Houston, TX) the last week of December. It advised people working New Year's Day that the air conditioning might be turned off and was asking for feedback. In the end there was too much of an outcry and it was left on.
Anyone that patronizes a "green" business with air conditioning is a hypocrite!
1:03 p.m.
Mar 4, '07
"Anyone that patronizes a "green" business with air conditioning is a hypocrite!"
That isn't necessarily true. Air conditioning isn't any more energy wasteful than heating a building. Central air supplied by a high efficiency heat pump can be just as efficient or more efficient than heat.
But if you don't need it, by all means turn it off and open a window instead.
I believe that the newer green certified buildings being built these days have motion detectors that turn lights off when no one is in the room, and turn on automatically when someone walks in.
It is true that you don't want to be turning florescent light bulbs on and off continuously - it is better to leave them on for a while once you turn them on. But I doubt that means you need to leave them on all night, 24/7. Maybe back in the old days, but not today with the new and improved technology available.
Mar 4, '07
Philly has a large concentration of firms trading in options, futures, and curriencies, on an international basis. Most of these firms are operating 24 hours a day. and often the cleaning crews work the overnight shift.
5:46 p.m.
Mar 4, '07
doretta, i have to disagree with you. office buildings have sophisticated heating/cooling systems not to control climate but to ensure that certain areas of the cube farm are ice cold, other parts are saunas, and all parts get maximum exposure to every germ and virus brought into work that day. few things are as comedic as the attempt to "even out" the heating & cooling. no doubt the real reason for lights being left on is just as ludicrous and defenseless. probably force-of-habit and little more.
Mar 5, '07
How much energy does it take to light up a downtown Portland intersection? It is obvious that government does not walk the talk. Just count all those street light standards at popular downtown intersections such as around Pioneer Square. There are eight of them, with two light fixtures each. That is, count ‘em, 16 street lights to light up each of those intersections. That goes well beyond the amount of light needed for any safety reason. And then there are all those lights in the trees, not just at Christmas but three months or more a year. The spin here is at the taxpayer funded electric meter.
Mar 5, '07
How much electricity do you think the toy trains and tram use? The corrupt officials are getting kickbacks from the electric companies. And to think a lot of that energy is generated from very non-environmentally friendly sources like hydroelectric dams and coal plants. Oh, this is the city that prides itself in it's progressive environmentalism while spilling sewage into the 3rd most polluted river in the country.
9:21 p.m.
Mar 5, '07
I love the right wing trolls "toy train" rhetoric.
C'mon boys, it's plain that the ultimate toy is not trains, it's the automobile. Clearly you all are willing to follow that love affair far beyond any semblance of rationality.
Hydroelectric dams are environmentally unfriendly in a much more limited way than fossil fuel guzzling phallic symbols.
Mar 5, '07
Me, I love how we get from the thousands and thousands of light bulbs in an empty 10-story office building to 16 of them at an intersection where there are people pretty much all night.
Mar 8, '07
I worked in a building with motion sensors for the lights once. They weren't set right, so unless someone walked down the cubicle aisle every few minutes, the sensors wouldn't register any movement and Poof! Out went the lights. Management's solution? They bought us all brooms--I kid you not--brooms--so we could periodically wave them brooms over our heads/cubes or into the aisles to "hit" the sensors. Memo from CEO said it was more cost efficient to provide employees with "sensor notifiers" (ie--brooms) than to fix it. I was never so happy to be a temp in my life. Bottom line...corporations are never logical (not to mention environmentally friendly), so don't drive yourself nuts looking for the reasons behind their actions.