Green Light New Orleans

Green Light New Orleans is a non-profit environmental organization based in New Orleans, Louisiana, that works to reduce rising energy bills and the carbon emissions in the city of New Orleans through the installation of compact fluorescent lights. [http://www.greenlightneworleans.org/ Green Light New Orleans] - Official website] The long term goal of the program is to replace all of the approximately 3 million lights in the New Orleans area within 4 years. The organization helps low and middle income individuals and households, and the service and bulbs are provided for free.

History

New Orleans is at high risk of detestation by the effects of global warming due to its low elevation and proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. [Reichhardt, T. 2004. Hurricane Ivan highlights future risk for New Orleans. Nature 431, p.388.] . Local musician Andi Hoffmann and his band B-Goes founded the organization in the fall of 2006 as a response to the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the levees. The band began by calculating the carbon output created as a result of its European concert tours and figured out how many CFLs had to be installed to offset that output [B-Goes: www.bgoes.com/pollutionoffset.html] . With each concert ticket sold at shows in Europe, attendees were asked to donate to Green Light New Orleans. The response was overwhelmingly positive and soon after returning to New Orleans the organization was established.

Goal

The city of New Orleans faces serious consequences of global warming through stronger hurricanes as well as increases in energy cost [Entergy New Orleans: www-temp.entergy.com/News_Room/newsrelease.aspx?NR_ID=915] . Wasteful energy consumption is perhaps the largest contributor to global warming. The main goal of the organization is to switch the entire city from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs. What makes this program unique is that the bulbs are not just given to the homeowner or renters, but volunteers visit each home and put the bulbs directly in the fixtures ensuring that they are put to immediate use and the saving of electricity and reduction of carbon are immediately realized. The program is supported through private donations, sponsors and corporate grants. As of May 2008 Green Light New Orleans had installed over 80,000 CFLs and has a goal of installing 300,000 CFL bulbs by the end of 2008. Within 4 years Green Light New Orleans anticipates replacing all of the approximately 3 million incandescent bulbs in New Orleans residential homes to CFLs.

See also

*Environment of the United States

References

External links

* [http://www.greenlightneworleans.org Green Light New Orleans]
*http://blog.nola.com/karengist/2007/06/seeing_the_light_musician_want.html
*http://www.neworleansmagazine.com/a/news/seeing-green-3472/hoffman.html
*http://www.ornl.gov