Blazing Lights in the Middle of a Crisis

Office buildings are blazing with light 24/seven, including government buildings. Even if office tenants are not required to pay their own bills, owners could afford to pay someone to turn off at least the overhead lights with what would be saved. Business signs and billboards not on solar power should be turned off at 7 p.m. Thermostats in every building should be adjusted for overnight unless the business is staffed 24/seven.

People are pawning possessions, for crying out loud, to pay their power bills. Fixed-income citizens are being squeezed beyond belief. I creep around my home in relative darkness, use appliances during evening hours, turn the thermostat to conservative settings, disconnect some appliances and am watchful of the turn of each kilowatt nanosecond and every BTU. I am irate that there is no demand that every consumer, commercial and industrial, do the same. There is no excuse.

Patti Scarborough

Arcadia

What power shortage? Half feel that it’s a sham; half feel that it’s for real. Meanwhile, as I look east from a fifth-floor balcony at a picture-postcard-perfect downtown L.A., skyscrapers are lit up to the max. What will it take, a gubernatorial proclamation to have the janitors clean one floor at a time? I’m living on a fixed income, and I’d like to have the money it costs for electricity for a grand opening. Huge spotlights last night crisscrossed the sky downtown. Come on, think! It’s 100% painless.

Morris “Sonny” Anglin

Los Angeles

In January, I drove through Los Angeles. I passed several car dealerships that had acres of cars lit up so brightly it was hard to look at them, even though it was late at night and they were closed. In April, I flew into Los Angeles International Airport. Riding the shuttle to the hotel, I passed many hotels and other tall buildings that had floodlights pointing up to light up the outside of the building. In my hotel room, I found a note explaining the energy crisis, its seriousness and asking that I do what I could to save energy. Following the examples of California-style energy conservation I had recently seen, I went around the room and turned on everything electric there was.

Bruce Dalton

Columbia, S.C.

Several years ago, I owned a house in Washington state. The electric utility company helped me replace all the single-pane windows with double-pane windows, paid half of the cost and provided a low-interest loan for the rest. The program was sponsored by the utility, and the goal was to reduce demand for energy.

I read that the average house can be renovated to be completely solar for about $17,000. Electricity needs of the house would be taken care of, and during nonpeak hours generated electricity could be sold back to the utility. California should start a solarization program for homeowners. The deal might be something like this: The state would pay $7,000 of the cost and give the homeowner a low-interest loan to pay off the $10,000 balance. The program would be designed so the homeowner would pay off the loan within five years.

This could result in a very significant reduction in California’s energy needs.

Ralph Alexander

Camarillo

Texas power brokers (not producers, but middlemen) are buying California electricity and selling it back to us at racketeering-like profits with the blessing of President Bush. The president is favoring Texas’ economy over that of California. This is a precedent we do not want to set. Is this revenge for all those years of high-mileage, low-pollution mandates that put the Texas economy into a tailspin?

Edeth Craig

Anaheim