Stephen Hiltner of Princeton
In extensive reports on the debate over installing lighting for high school sports events in West-Windsor-Plainsboro, one element appears to be missing. That is the consideration of how the installation would impact the towns’ progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Sustainability Plan in West Windsor’s Master Plan, for instance, sets a target of reducing township emissions to seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012. If the schools are being expected to do their part, how would the lights impact progress toward that goal?
To determine how the proposed lighting installation would impact sustainability, various factors would need to be taken into account, including any change in vehicle miles traveled if games currently being played at the county fields are shifted to the high school, how many more games would be played at night than in the past, and whether the most efficient and focused lighting technologies would be used.
Not being a resident of West Windsor or Plainsboro, I want to emphasize that including calculations of sustainability in decision-making is a universal challenge, not particular to any town. Climate change, like sports, is a game of numbers. Most of the numbers generated thus far, by New Jersey and its many communities, have been in the form of good intentions: 20 percent reduction in emissions by 2020, or 80 percent reduction by 2050. But who is keeping score? How many of us can say if our homes, our workplaces and our shared institutions are on track to meet these goals? Sustaining spaceship earth is the biggest game around, and every decision involving energy use will influence the outcome. It’s time to generate some stats and play by play.
Stephen Hiltner
Princeton
