Splice Now

We in post-production use a lot of energy. It’s not always obvious — no blast furnaces are in evidence, after all — but when you add up all the devices we have running, often 24/7, you’re likely to come up with a big sum. The computer, the many monitors, the decks, the server: that’s a lot of little motors spinning and backlights lighting. And then, of course, there’s the heating and air conditioning. In our building, every room has its own thermostat, offering us the luxury of setting temperatures individually. And the thermostat comes with another little perk: an on/off switch.

As I was leaving the cutting room recently, I mentioned to a friend that I always turn the system off over the weekend. The response? “I don’t like to come in to a stuffy room in the morning.” I guess that’s a common concern. But as we look forward to the upcoming congressional debate on a big cap and trade system, we might consider some measures closer to home. One trivially easy thing we could all do is avoid heating, cooling (or lighting) empty rooms. If you’ve got a switch on your AC system, why not use it?

This entry was posted on October 25, 2009 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Media and Society. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.