I turned off my desk lamp to save on electricty, while I am writing. That’s silly, I know. A lightbulb amounts to nothing. I know that too. And despite that, I did it.
I moved my sad desk1 closer to that window. Before the move, it was facing a wall in the same room and needed that lamp all the time. After moving it, I sat and get out my pen and paper, I did not turn on the lamp, and started writing. And there was more light coming from the window. So, I decided to draft this blog post.
But I agree: it is silly. It is just a single lightbulb’s worth of electricity. Nothing.
It is not a huge data center, or anything huge. What it is, though, is a lamp I used almost every single day while I was writing on that same desk, during the last six months or so.
Think about this: we are eight billion people on the earth. Say that 10% or even just 1% of all of us are using a single lamp at any given time of the day. That’s still 80 000 000 (80 million) lightbulbs burning electricity. That seems to me like a lot more electricity already. And that is most certainly a gross underestimation (we use more than one and we’re more than that to do it). But even if it was not underestimated, it would still be a lot of electricity that could be spared, at no extra cost.
All it required from me is to reconsider my usage of that desk and what I had available to use in place of my desk lamp. What I had was the light of the day. The sun.
Not only the sun is free lighting – no monthly subscription — but it is also an endlessly renewable source of energy2. It also happens to be a better light source for our health3.
Sure, the sun seems to be slightly less efficient at night. Hard to contest that drawback. But there was still an easy fix for me as all I had to change is my habit of writing late at night and start doing it when it was still the day.
And when the sun doesn’t shine, say when the weather is overcast? We still get a fair amount of light no matter what. Enough for me to draft this blog post longhand without needing the help of any lamp.
You are silly. Yeah, I most probably am. But all it required is a couple changes. So why, not?
- Move that desk closer to a window (I also added dour small wheels on its legs to make it easier to move it around if I or my spouse want to).
- Change my habits of writing at night to write during day time.
Notes:
- What’s a sad desk, you may ask? It’s my desk. It was sad the day we met in our street that morning. It was lying next to a broken chair. The desk itself was covered with dew but had barely any dent or scratch, but the chair was beyond repair. Seeing that sad scene, I did what any sensible person would have done and asked the desk why it was zoning outside instead of doing its expected desk job inside someone’s home. The desk smiled sadly told me it had been deemed not assorted to the new chair that replaced the broken one and had been discarded. I could feel its pain. I needed a desk myself, so I offered it ? new home. It has been living with us for over six months now. It n1.ver told me if it regretted its past home, and I never asked either. (Yes, a desk can be sad. Yes, a desk can smile. Yes, a desk can talk. One just needs to be willing to listen to it).
- I lied. The sun is not an endless source of energy and light. According to NASA, it will cease to function in approx 4 or 5 billion years. That is still a tad longer than any lightbulb available on the market.
- Benefits of Sunlight: A Bright Spot for Human Health.
Published: 2024/01/06