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December 17, 2012 By News Staff
Answer: Paris, the "City of Light"
Paris has long been a leader when it comes to public lighting, but this year the city may change that, according to Fast Company.
Delphine Batho, head of the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development, and Energy, has submitted a proposal that "would require stores, offices and public buildings across the country to turn off the lights between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m.," Fast Company reported.
The point of the policy, Batho said, is to save energy and money -- and “to change the culture” in a time of economic crisis. It's to make people aware of the importance of using energy resources efficiently.
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Well I can't speak for Paris, but where I come from it can be a significant health and safety issue, even just in terms of merely being able to carry home a simple bag of groceries over a choppy stretch of sidewalk, for example, let alone the more obvious concerns about crime. I believe years ago residents of one major university section of the city prone to crime used to be rewarded if they installed large lights on their property. For all I know, perhaps they still are, though given certain changes in focus I'm not so sure that would be so any more. Usually the need appears to be for more lights, not less. We really need to be very careful and honest about making a false and harmful politically correct "religion" out of energy and "cost" savings and so forth at the expense of public safety, health, and productivity, as some surely seem to have done already unfortunately. Often the measures and changes imposed appear to be truly and very penny wise and pound foolish rather than truly beneficial, sending people backwards instead of forward and causing real harm and real and important new costs in other ways as a result.