33 Baker Square in Rosebank Johannesburg at 22h30 on Saturday 3 September
Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies on day 156 of no lockdown.
Period as an ivory tower academic 161 days
The term ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) is extremely fashionable these days. No respectable large corporate entity won’t devote a significant section of its annual report to ESG. They will explain in glowing terms how they care about the environment are socially responsible and caring and their governance is impeccable. They will have beautiful, consultant-prepared, charts and graphs. You will feel all warm and fuzzy after reading this. You might even buy their shares.
We humans can talk up a storm when we need to. We all agree we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, right? Let’s start with a statement of the obvious. The easiest way to reduce carbon emissions is to stop wasting energy and use energy more efficiently. Reducing or eliminating energy wastage will often also pay for itself. Are we doing this?
Well, let’s go into a detour about lighting to see if our actions are consistent with our chatter. Lighting uses close to 20% of the global electricity supply so it is responsible for a lot of carbon dioxide emissions. It is true that the advent of electric lighting in the early 20th century has immeasurably improved human welfare. There have also been enormous improvements in lighting technology and the inefficient incandescent light bulbs introduced by Thomas Edison are steadily being phased out in favour of LED lights that use at least 75% less electricity and last 25 times longer. More efficient LED lights are cheaper to operate and have led to an increase in artificial lighting. This then prompts the question of what the purpose of lighting is and how much lighting we need.
On Saturday night Nerine and I went out for dinner and as I was walking back to the parking lot at 22h30, I took the featured image of the office building 33 Baker Square. It appeared deserted but was fully lit up. Why? The building is occupied by Standard Bank one of the big five banks in South Africa. They, of course, are totally committed to ESG and social, economic, and environmental impact (SEE). If you want to feel warm and fuzzy take a look at the wonderful ESG slides their investor relations department recently prepared. How hard would it be to turn the lights off when the building is unoccupied? Apart from the environmental impact it would also save money and allow bigger bonuses to be paid to the executives. Electric SUV’s are pretty pricey in South Africa so one needs those bonusses.
Lest you think I am picking on Standard Bank I am not. They were just the example right in front of my eyes. They are by no means unique and there are thousands of unoccupied office buildings lit up like Christmas trees at night in Johannesburg and this is repeated across cities across the globe. We light up millions of unoccupied buildings at night. Why do we do this?
More light is not always better, and the concept of light pollution is a reality. Although it is hard to measure it is estimated that about 35% of artificial light is wasted by being poorly aimed or unshielded. In the US alone, this equates to about $3 billion per year spent on “making the sky glow”. For those who have the interest and the patience, I recommend a thought-provoking TED talk on this topic. We waste tremendous resources on light that goes out into space and doesn’t do anyone any good. Too much artificial light impedes proper sleeping and is bad for your health. People living in modern cities live in perpetual twilight and this is not how we evolved, and it interferes with our circadian rhythms.
If we had the will, it would be quite easy to implement measures to reduce the wastage of artificial lighting and reduce its environmental footprint. Yet we don’t. Why is this? Perhaps lighting is a small part of the corporate budget and it’s better to focus on preparing beautiful ESG slides for investor relations.
At a household level in Johannesburg, some people see bright exterior lights as a crucial security measure to deter criminals even if those lights shine straight into their neighbours’ bedrooms. These lights can easily be connected to motion sensors but perhaps you won’t then feel so secure. How many lights should you leave on at night in your home when you are asleep?
Tackling wastage in lighting is a difficult problem because it spans so many organisations and individuals across the globe. Although we say we want to reduce carbon emissions we don’t necessarily translate those sentiments into simple cost-effective concrete actions at our places of work or in our homes. Flagstaff Arizona is one of the few places in the world where light pollution is illegal so it can be done. To what extent do the people in Flagstaff have a worse quality of life because everything is not brightly lit at night? Perhaps their quality of life is better? There is an organisation called the international dark sky association (IDA) that campaigns against light pollution.
The trend for light pollution is increasing and it is continuing to get worse. Do we perhaps prefer to think about grand new things we can do in the future like green hydrogen, renewable electricity, sucking the carbon dioxide out of the air using direct air capture, and the next big thing rather than mundane housekeeping in the present?
I am a city dweller, and it is only when I make my annual pilgrimages into remote wilderness areas free of light pollution on clear moonless nights that I get to properly experience the night sky the way our ancestors did. This is an image one of my friends who is into photography took on one of our trips. It is my screensaver.
To me, this image is breathtaking and deeply humbling. You can clearly see the Milky Way and it reminds us that we are insignificant in the context of the vastness of the universe. You can’t see anything like this in Johannesburg or other cities worldwide. Down with light pollution. Only turn on the lights that you need and turn most of the lights off when you are asleep. If you need a security light link it to a motion detector. Is my advice likely to be heeded? Not so much.
Thank you for all the ideas and comments. I really appreciate them and please keep them coming.
Regards
Bruce
Ruminant Pink Friday 