Читать книгу The Self-Sufficiency Handbook - Alan Bridgewater - Страница 38

Although most of us take electric light for granted, there was a time, not so long ago, when lighting was noisy, was smelly, required a lot of effort, and was anything but instant. For example, when my grandpa was a child in the 1890s, they had gaslights, oil lamps, and candles, and that was about it. Interestingly, he told me that while he had spent a lot of time trimming wicks, fetching oil, cleaning the globes and chimneys, buying more candles, and generally keeping the light sources in good condition, he did not remember his world as being dark or gloomy. The homes, the street, the corner shop, the pub, and all of the other buildings each sat in its own individual pool of light rather than everything being linked by all-encompassing illumination.

It is plain to see that if we reduced our lighting levels and overall usage of light, we really would not be any worse off. There are alternative ways of making electricity, which we discuss later in the book, but for now let’s consider how we could make small changes to the lighting that we have.