Sunday N. Y. Time, 7/8/07 Conservation

W. Orange turning on to energy conservation

Sunday, June 24, 2007

BY KEVIN C. DILWORTH Star-Ledger Staff

There's really nothing more for gettable than the common, everyday light bulb.  So prosaic in appearance. So basic in function.  But West Orange is hoping to use the bulb as a way to remind its residents about the importance of energy conservation.  Not just ordinary bulbs. These are 5 feet high and their bland bulbous bodies have been hand- painted with colorful images. The artist creations will start sprouting up in 21 locations around town be ginning this week.  "Our light bulb display will be one of the ways we are working to educate residents about how altering our culture of consumption can make a difference, beginning right here in the township," said Mayor John McKeon.  The light bulb seemed a perfect fit since the township once was home to its inventor, Thomas Edison, the mayor said.  Earlier this year, McKeon launched the town on an energy diet, a program designed to get residents to curb water waste, cut down on the use of electricity and get involved in energy conservation.  The mayor said he hopes the three-month bulb display, "The Great Light Way," inspires residents to get with the program.  "To stem the ravages of the effects of global warming, we must think globally and act locally," McKeon said.  Before the "bulbs" start appearing Friday in locations throughout the 12-square-mile township, all 21 will be displayed on the front lawn of the West Orange Public Library, 46 Mt. Pleasant Ave., directly behind the West Orange Municipal Building's rear parking lot. The bulbs will be unveiled Tuesday between 6 and 8 p.m.  Like West Orange did with its successful "Cow Parade" in 2000, when 28 life-size fiberglass cows were painted and put on display, township officials again asked artists throughout the region to participate.  Artists Patricia Saxton of Summit and Rosalie Skakum of Bloomfield were among 13 artists selected to create energy-saving themes on the bulbs. They were paid $700 for each design, township planner Susan Borg said.  "A friend in West Orange told me 'This is something that you have to do' and that there was a call for artists," said Saxton, who has owned Saxton Illustration and Design for 20 years. "I submitted designs. The response was, 'These are fantastic.'"   PSE&G paid West Orange a $2,500 sponsorship fee to get Sax ton to design a bulb that will be placed outside the Gregory Avenue School, at Gregory Avenue and Walker Road, and the owners of West Orange Plaza paid the same $2,500 sponsorship fee for Saxton to design a second bulb that will be displayed outside the plaza, at Prospect and Eagle Rock avenues.  One design is of a macaw par rot, and the other is a painting of a giraffe hide, with quotes and images interspersed on each piece. They each represent nature and people enjoying life, Saxton explained.  One quote is from James Audubon: "A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children."  "I grew up in a family that was already concerned about energy," Saxton said. "My dad always wanted us to turn off the lights when we left the room, and to not run the heat too high. So it wasn't too far a stretch for me to (paint) about the value of nature and its preservation, when we conserve."  Skakum's bulb sponsor is Prism Green, the developer who last year purchased and now owns one of the former Organon pharmaceutical buildings, at 471-475 Prospect Ave., off Mount Pleasant Avenue.  The artist said she sought inspiration for her painting by researching Edison's life and times in West Orange, as well as the trials and tribulations that went into developing the light bulb.  "I did a lot of research on Thomas Edison, the central idea behind the light bulb, and his successes and failures," Skakum said. "I have a lot of his patents painted on the light bulb itself, kind of visual representations of the inventions he created."  Because the theme of the bulb is the late inventor's successes and failures, Skakum said, the painting portrays "the idea of motivation; just working hard at something he believed in. The tribute to his successes and failures kind of gives you motivation."  After West Orange's "Cow Parade" 2000, the cow art was auctioned off, with the proceeds benefiting West Orange charities. That is what will happen this year when the display is over.  On Oct. 6, all the bulbs will be assembled and shown in the common of the Essex Green Shopping Center on Prospect Avenue. A West Orange Arts Council-sponsored art exposition that day will feature a silent auction of each bulb. The proceeds again will be used to benefit West Orange charities.  While West Orange is hoping to promote energy efficiency, the light bulb used in the display is modeled on the old fashioned, energy-hungry incandescent bulb. Energy-efficient bulbs, known as compact fluorescent lamps, are shaped more like two pigtails twisted into each other. They use far less energy than an incandescent, but give off the same amount of light.  People are slowly but surely coming around and buying the energy-saving bulbs, said Roger Schneider, who, with his brother, operates Schneider's Hardware store on Main Street, in the township's Tory Corner area.  "There's an increased aware ness and interest (in the bulbs), and people are certainly asking for them more and more," Schneider said. "But we still have a long way to go to raise that level of aware ness."  Displays such as West Orange's cows and the upcoming bulbs have been held elsewhere.  In Northfolk, Va., officials sponsored a "Mermaids on Parade," in the spring of 2000.  The creation of colorful sculptures --fashioned after a logo adopted by Norfolk the year before: a free-spirited, young mermaid that signifies the "new" Norfolk -- was part of a public art project there.  The whimsical, water-loving creatures --created as a means of celebrating and supporting artists in that Virginia region -- were placed throughout Norfolk.  Inspired by the Mermaids of Norfolk, the folks in Beaufort County, S. C., last year decided to replicate that  kind of public arts display.  A yearlong program, called "Beaufort's Big Swim: Mermaids," consists of 31 human-size fiberglass mermaids designed and created by local artists and groups. It remains on display there through Oct. 27, when the mermaids will be auctioned off in the Beaufort town center.  To promote the quality of life and business in upscale Garden City, Long Island, 67 life-size fiberglass horse creations were hand-painted and displayed throughout that suburban Nassau County village in spring 2003.  All the creations of the "Horse of a Different Color" art campaign were auctioned off that fall. One, created by students at Garden City High School, was donated to the village and it remains on display outside a gazebo on the Village Green.  

Kevin C. Dilworth may be reached at kdilworth@starled ger.com or (973) 392-4143

© 2007 The Star Ledger

© 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

Corzine signs Global Warming Response Act
By Max Pizarro - July 6, 2007 - 11:22pm
Tags: Jon Corzine, Al Gore,
That little old, disrespected Superfund-wasteland-mobland spillzone otherwise known as the State of New Jersey was due for some respect, and so was Jeff Tittel.

As director of the Sierra Club in the country’s most populous state, Tittel, a native New Jerseyan, has the mostly thankless job of trying to protect the dwindling natural resources here. So when Gov. Jon Corzine grabbed a pen at Giants Stadium today and signed into law the Global Warming Response Act, which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and reduce by 80% of 2006 levels by the year 2050, Tittel figured he could chest-thump just a little.
“We’re better than those Californians,” he said of the west coast state that first implemented a global warming attack plan. “We’re tougher and we’re stronger. Even though our bill is second, it’s tougher and stronger.”
For his part, the governor, hoping to deflect criticism over his muddled presentation of a toll roads leasing strategy, and smother the sting of environmentalists worried about Corzine’s linkage of farmland preservation dollars to his toll roads plan, could once again remind people that he’s a big picture guy, who not only cares about the environment but cares enough to act.

Unlike President George W. Bush.

“We want to send a message to Washington: ‘Wake up,’” said the governor. “Start doing something about climate change.”

Between environmentalists fuming over six years of missed opportunities and Democrats delighting in election year opportunism, it was a Bush pile on, with even former Vice President Al Gore himself surrealistically putting in an appearance on the eve of the Live Earth Concert at Giants Stadium, jumping onto the stage with Corzine, agleam in the armor of good conscience.

The Tennessean was once not unlike the New Jersey of politicians, as he attempted to discuss global warming – the build-up of gasses in the earth’s atmosphere, largely caused by human activity and pollution and contributing to ecological imbalance, according to scientists. Like the state and like Tittel, the failed 2000 presidential candidate received little respect in return. But today it was Gore, “our global mentor,” in the words of one of the bill’s co-prime sponsors – Assemblyman Reed Gusciora - with an Oscar on his mantle piece for his wake-up call documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” bear-hugging and then backing up Corzine, telling the world that if Bush and the U.S. government wouldn’t take the lead, at least states and citizens would.

“As part of my slide show in the future I plan to feature New Jersey prominently,” said Gore, as the state with the country’s most dramatic emissions reduction plans. There were some murmurings of “run” in the crowd, but Gore referred to himself as a retired politician.

Already a hapless 21% in the polls here in New Jersey, Bush, meanwhile, was a sagging punching bag for the pro-environment forces in every speech, every comment from the floor: a walking blueprint for everything wrong with trying to obscure the negative environmental impacts of the human footprint.

“He’s the president of big oil and big coal more than he’s on the side of the American people,” said Tittel.

“Bush has denied the existence of global warming, denied the fact that they should do anything about it,” said Doug O’Malley, field director for Environment New Jersey.

Assemblywoman Linda Stender, who almost beat incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson in 2006 and who intends to challenge the Congressman again in 2008, wrote the bill with Sen. Barbara Buono, Gusciora, Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle.

“We have been failed miserably by the current leadership,” Stender said of the Bush Administration. “We need global leadership.”

Gore soaked up the atmosphere, and darted out of the parking lot tent after a pump-up-the-troops speech. Corzine held the stage and gave the thumbs-up sign once he’d signed the bill.

Dena Mottola, executive director of Environment New Jersey, celebrated the governor’s leadership, and said strictures on greenhouse emissions are but one facet of a developing plan needed to fight pollution. “Rail is a big part of the solution going forward,” Mottola said. “We need improved passenger transport and we need to get a portion of the big trucks off the roads, in part by partnering with the federal government.”

The feds will have to play a role eventually and on Friday the idea was that hopefully with the bill Jersey will apply some conscience-pressure, but as the riled up Tittel said in the end, “It doesn’t matter what Bush and Cheney do. It matters what we do.”