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Re: (meteorobs) OT-Power Crisis to reduce light pollution (somewhat)
Here is a follow-up on what Wayne posted:
<A HREF="http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2001/02/02/power_bill/index.html">
Click here: Salon.com News | California governor orders lights dimmed</A>
As for Governor Davis, what he is doing now in California is pretty
much what President Nixon and the US Congress did on a National Level during
the "Energy Crisis Years" of 1973-76.
Why is it, however, when there is an impending crisis and a mounting
sense of urgency that things suddenly tend to get done rather rapidly? I
well remember back in 1973 and 1974 how Congress in very quick order passed
legislation to change the dates of daylight saving time and how President
Nixon urged Americans to conserve electricity by curtailing use of Christmas
decorations (the Washington D.C. Christmas Tree had just one solitary light
-- the star at the top!; the Rockefeller Center Tree had far fewer lights and
used reflectors to give the impression that the tree was more fully lit).
I also clearly remember advertisements back then (I was 17), such as a
Pathmark Supermarket television commercial where a choir of kids sang "You
gotta turn off the lights!" while unscrewing colored bulbs on a giant
Pathmark sign (anybody else remember this?). Quietly, during this time
frame, some of the streetlamps in my old Bronx neighborhood of Throggs Neck
were inexplicably extinguished, quite possibly as part of some grandiose
energy conservation plan.
Back then, most of us were not overly concerned with the problem of
light pollution. Certainly, there was no legislation in the works to try and
keep those lights diminished after the "crisis" passed.
The difference this time is that -- at least here in New York -- we have
*what hopes to be* a very strong bill being drafted in the State
Legislature. Governor Davis' recent proclaimation gives us even greater hope
that this light pollution bill will be pushed through. And if that bill
passes, other states will fall like dominoes, because I truly believe that if
it can be done in New York State, it can be done anywhere in the world.
-- joe rao
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