Energy Awareness / Energiebewußtsein

I realized today, as I sat in an out-dated lecture hall for my final exam (even though there is a week and a half left of classes, this was the final exam), that the lights were on. It's the first time this year there there have been lights on overhead for a German class, and it struck me that it is often the case here, lights being turned off in places you might expect them to be turn on - or at least places that would surely be lighted in the U.S.

This particular lecture hall is in an odd location, somehow built between floors with the door located on the landing halfway between the basement and the ground floor. There are no windows, and it seems to be windows that are the key to the no lights phenomenon. My regular classroom, the one where I sit three times a week, has windows on one wall. The lights are never turned on, the windows letting in the light we work by. It's dim during class, but not really any different than our living room during the day. At first it seemed odd to be in a classroom without bright flourescent lights burning overhead, but now it just seems normal.

The hallways at the University are similar. Where the hallways are surrounded by classrooms, lights are turned on. In the stairwells and hallway areas with windows, only natural light is used. Hallways in apartment buildings and dorms and hotels also demonstrate this light/no light phenomenon. Sometimes there are motion sensors on the walls that turn on the lights temporarily when someone comes through. Other buildings have special light switches (like our apartment building does) that turn the lights on just for a minute or two, long enough for you to get up or down the stairs - or to another light switch - before the lights go off again.

You can find the same at doctor's offices. It is normal to have no lights on in the waiting room and no lights on in the exam room, windows letting in the only light. When the doctor sees you, he/she turns on the special examination light just to look at ears or noses or whatever, and then it is turned off again.

Public toilets in restaurants or schools or hotels...the same thing. Natural light, motion sensor light, or timed lights. No electricity wasted there.

It's either an awareness of saving energy or an awareness of not wasting energy, and I think back to all the offices and classrooms I have been in over the years. Turning on the lights has always been a natural first thing to do to start the work day, but are those lights really needed? I can't think of a single place where natural daylight wouldn't have been sufficient - and yet, I would never before have considered sitting "in the dark" when at work. I think I've wasted a lot of energy over the years. When we get back home, I will definitely be thinking twice about turning on a light when it's not really necessary. Life works just as well without being wasteful!