Pikes Peak beacon goes green - in color only
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- Created on Wednesday, 17 November 2010 13:56
- Written by Nathan
By DAVE PHILIPPS, THE GAZETTE
The little white light on Pikes Peak is going green.
At least in color.
The bulb, which shines from the 14,115-foot summit turned emerald Monday night and will twinkle emerald until Saturday to mark the 2010 Southern Colorado Sustainability Conference.
It’s the first time ever that the light first placed atop Pikes Peak in 1905 has had a color and a cause. But like many other aspects of the budding sustainability trend, the new hue on Pikes Peak is green in color only.
While it is cleaner than the original 1905 spotlight powered by a huge gas generator, it is not a new, hyper efficient CFL or LED bulb.
“It’s still the same 500-watt halogen bulb we’ve used for years, we just put a green lens over it,” said Jack Glavan, manager of the Pikes Peak Highway.
He figured it burns about six kilowatts per night. Which begs the question, if you are talking sustainability, why not just turn the thing off?
“That’s what we wanted to do at first,” said Eric Cefus, director the of Catamount Institute, which organized the conference. “But people would just think the light had burned out. Maybe next year we’ll be able to do that. But we wanted to initiate a community conversation.”
The annual conference aims to bring together local leaders, business people and concerned citizens to discuss environmentally sustainable living in Colorado Springs. (Learn more at www.ppsbn.org.)
“Colorado Springs has extremely low sustainability levels, everything from the amount of renewable energy to attracting clean, sustainable businesses,” said Cefus. “We thought, what can we do to get attention for this conference?”
They decided to take a cue from the Empire State Building, which changes the color of its lights more than 100 times per year to raise awareness for everything from women’s equality (red, white and blue) to gay pride (lavender and white) to Mariah Carey (pink, lavender and white).
Unintentionally, by calling attention to the conference, Catamount may also spark a new trend, where causes of all kinds will line up to light up the peak.
Could there be a lavender gay pride bulb shining over Colorado Springs some time soon? Or Mariah Carey, for that matter?
“I expect a lot of people will want to get attention for their cause,” said Glavan. “We’re drawing up policies on how we make those decisions.”
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