Editorial comment: New light on a big problem

On Tuesday, Kyeesha Fountain, a young student from the South Bronx, won applause for finding and replacing every energy-guzzling incandescent light bulb in her apartment building - 410 in all - with compact fluorescents. The awards ceremony in Hunts Point celebrated a light bulb census, which engaged 500 students, who found and listed the location of 4,000 bulbs in all.

The ceremony was the culmination of a campaign by RelightNY and Sustainable South Bronx's "Green the Ghetto" program to promote the energy- saving virtues of fluorescent bulbs that can be screwed into standard light fixtures.

ReLight is the invention of high school students, who decided that instead of waiting for 2014, when federal legislation will end the use of incandescent bulbs in their current, energy-sapping form, they would raise awareness by giving away compact fluorescent bulbs to low-income families.

But there's no reason to confine this crusade to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and slow global warming to the Bronx's poorest neighborhoods.

In our own neighborhood, the Riverdale YM-YWHA has launched a "Greening Riverdale" program. As part of its celebration of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, it sold compact fluorescents in mix-and-match six packs at its front desk.

The bulbs, the Y notes, use up to 75 percent less energy than regular incandescent light bulbs, while lasting seven to 10 times longer. According to RelightNY, if every American replaced just one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent, the savings would be spectacular: measured in dollars, more than $8 billion; in coal burned, 30 billion pounds; or in greenhouse gas, the equivalent of the emissions from two million cars.

Sustainable South Bronx reached out to families through children and their schools. For younger children, its contest was not only an ecology lesson but an arithmetic lesson. Here's its list of instructions:

"Start with your home:

"Make a list of all the rooms in your home.

"Count the light bulbs in each room.

"Add up each room for the total number you need.

"Then go to your neighbor, and ask them if they want free light bulbs that reduce their energy bill.

"Show them the list you made for your home. With their permission, count up their bulbs.

"Do this for all the neighbors in your building, and the homes and businesses on your block if you can.

"Keep a list for each address and apartment number.

"Add up all the lists for your grand total."

Everyone who persuaded his or her parents and one neighbor to replace their bulbs got a T-shirt as a prize.

PS 7, PS 24, PS 37, PS 51, PS 81, PS 95, PS 207, PS 310, PS 360, St. Gabriel's, St. Margaret's, St. John's, Visitation, Our Lady of Angels, SAR Academy, Kinneret Day School, Fieldston, Riverdale, Horace Mann: Are you listening?

"It's our problem to solve," said 15-yearold Avery Hairston, a founder of RelightNY. "If we don't fix it, future generations will see us as the generation that didn't do enough. I don't want to be part of that. I want to be part of the generation that did."

This is part of the February 21, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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