Through all the media's talk surrounding global warming, I have never heard anything resembling "Use less energy!" Americans should be changing their lifestyle, not adapting technology to perpetuate our wastefulness. Penn State is "doing its part" environmentally by building a solar house as a research lab for renewable energy. Research is great, as it will help us in the future, but Penn State could be doing so much more to save energy and the environment. I look out my dorm room window Friday, Saturday, Sunday night to see the Beam and Stuckeman buildings lit up like a Christmas tree. These aren't the only buildings on campus lit up for days, perhaps weeks or months, on end. Even Beaver Stadium was fully lit last week.

Flourescent lights are touted as a panacea but are just a Band-Aid that, if not required to be on, can still waste energy. That wastefulness, Dear Old State, is my problem. I see windows open in dorms and classrooms, recyclables in standard trash cans and a generally wasteful infrastructure. The latest violation: Runkle Hall's decently usable desks and chairs were thrown several stories to waiting dumpsters. I see OPP vans idling, wasting gas, at Osmond and tractors idling at the farms beyond the stadium. We just need to be more energy efficient by turning off lights, turning down heat, closing the windows and driving smarter (No, you don't have to buy a Prius to save fuel.). Let's save the world without new technologies -reduce, reuse, recycle, and, most of all, conserve.