From Shirley Lutsky

Stores are competing for customers on our hot summer and early fall days especially in the areas of Concord and Walnut Creek. One “invitation” is to prop doors open to entice people with air conditioning.

Like leaving a refrigerator door open, this practice wastes energy, drives up costs, increases pollution and stresses the power grid. An average store with its doors propped open wastes about 4200 kilowatts of electricity over the summer, releasing about 2.2 tons of carbon dioxide – the same amount of pollution emitted by a diesel semi-truck driving from New York to Miami.

Let’s stops this habit of blatant energy waste. Stores keep their doors open because they believe it’s good for business. They need to hear from consumers like us that this practice is wasteful and we don’t approve.

Time for businesses to show their conservation values by closing their doors. If stores across the country closed their doors in the summer, it would reduce the equivalent amount of pollution generated by 830 million car miles – every year.

This article adapted from “Generation180”, an environmental organization.

Speak up for the planet!