Well, my pants feel tighter every morning and every visit to a public space seems to be punctuated with the festive strains of Mannheim Steamroller. Yes, my friends, that can only mean one thing - the holiday season is once again upon us. Family, food and fun, to be sure, but also a veritable orgy of consumption and waste. It casts a shadow to realize that our culture’s celebration habits are destroying the very things we’re celebrating. Bummer.
Fortunately, the Nature conservancy has prepared an excellent guide to a “Green Christmas“. Now let’s face it, not every one of us is going to run out to purchase carbon offsets against our holiday travel. But #5 on the list seems simple and practical –
Though they cost a bit more than traditional holiday lights, LED lights last much longer and consume a fraction of the energy, which leads to greater savings for years to come.
The US Department of Energy reports that if all conventional incandescent Christmas lights in the country were replaced with LED lights this season, annual energy savings would total two billion kilowatt-hours—enough energy to power nearly 200,000 homes for an entire year.
Holiday LEDs offers a particularly wide selection of LED holiday lighting. According to their Web site, these lights come with a lifetime warrany, consume just 1/10th of the power of traditional lights, and last 50,000 hours. That’s long enough for at least 30 holiday seasons! In my opinion, they look pretty cool, too.
A growing list of cities, including D.C, Toronto, London, and Denver has jumped on the LED bandwagon for their holiday lighting to realize significant energy savings.
Here in upstate New York, where the world has gone greyscale for the next 6 months, we can use all the holiday cheer we can get. I’m getting myself some LED holiday lights to put around our house.
