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We went to the zoo this past Saturday. It was a good day for the zoo, weather-wise and sign-wise.

First off, this sign, seen inside a new building (“new” as in “just opened about a month ago”).

It clearly states that this particular building does not use any light bulbs. Not reduced use of light bulbs but NO LIGHT BULBS. We are green, but it’s not enough for us to feel good about being green, we have to promote ourselves to you by showing how green we are. Even our signs are colored green.

It’s a zoo. I want the signs to be about the animals. I suppose that “animals” could be extended to “planet”, and “planet” could be localized to mean “building’s lighting systems”. My recommendation would be to put that type of information on a brochure or webpage so that people who cared about it could find it.

I suppose I could have ignored the sign. If all this was about being solarly responsible, I probably wouldn’t have written this post. I might have mentioned it, just in passing, maybe something about do not look directly into a solatube. The building had both skylights and solatubes, and those solatubes are bright. And they worked quite well to light the room.

So why am I rambling about the zoo’s claims of being environmentally friendly? Take a look at this view of the sign.

Do you see the irony? The sign is in the lower right corner. What do you see near the top left? That’s right, a fixture containing 8 light bulbs. And they are lit. In the middle of the afternoon. On a sunny day. You can tell it’s a sunny day because of how bright the solatube at the top left is.

In case you’re not convinced that those are them newfangled electric lights, here’s a closer shot.

Those are definitely powered by electricity. And there were more of those fixtures in this room, so there were at least 16 light bulbs.

So the sign should say “We are green and do not use any light bulbs in our buildings unless we want to highlight a wall with no displays on it.”

Overall, the zoo is great. We are going to keep going back. But the signs could use a little help.

“Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength,They were dismayed and put to shame;They were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb,As grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.”
– 2 Kings 19:26