From Bright and White to Dark and Green

With earth week less than a week behind us, New York State is striving to be the green state in the country. With many new green policies including reducing water runoff from farms, increasing solar energy farms, reducing paper waste, and limiting light usage, Governor Cuomo is showing he is serious about the environment. The most recent push is limiting the internal and external lights for commercial buildings at night.

For years, nearly 40,000 buildings in New York City have been using internal and or external lights at nighttime. City officials are calling for a bill to limit these light usages only when individuals are not inside the building. Reducing the number of lights left on within and on the outside would have a significant impact on curbing greenhouse gasses. Mayor deBlasio has articulated his support of passing this legislation, which would also cut down on light pollution for migrating birds.

While saving the environment is always a good thing, public safety could be affected with an unpredictable outcome. When you reduce the number of lights on the outside and inside of buildings, crime tends to increase. The biggest effect this bill of limiting the light usage would be for police officers of New York City. Police officers would no longer be able to look into closed stores to see if anything illegal is going on. Also, the quality on the security cameras would drop drastically because of the amount of light. The resolutions of potential could become obsolete which has been a huge source in identifying suspects.

This issue contains two sides with two very different valid points. Maintain the safety of individuals in New York City or make progress on the issue of global warming. Click here to learn how New York is becoming greener.