Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Earth
Do you find the incessant background music in stores and shopping malls distracting? Even annoying? Well, here's another reason not to like it: The malls of America consume more than a gigawatt of electricity per month playing the anodyne sales-spurring pop.
Enterprising Stanford students crunched the numbers on how much energy it takes to play all that pop and came up with a figure of 1.18 gigawatt-hours. Given the present energy mix that means Mantovani adds more than 3,000 metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere each year.
To put that in perspective, the world as a whole emits roughly 30 gigatons of greenhouse gases per year. So mall music isn't exactly singlehandedly changing the Earth's climate. But malls do contribute an outsized portion of the heat-trapping gases from buildings, given their need for immense amounts of heating and cooling as well as always-on lighting.
In fact, temperature control and lighting account for more than 80 percent of a mall's energy consumption. Simply changing to more efficient light bulbs or HVAC systems would more than muffle the discordant thought of mall music's contribution to climate change.
—David Biello
See what we're tweeting about
9 Comments
Add CommentThis article is ridiculous. You could take any number of subjects like say...dog food and extrapolate that into how much green house gas it produces. So what! FLOSSING CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING!! Run for the hills the Global Warming Boogy-Man is going to get you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree. Just think about all the energy that is consumed in the production and reproduction of music in general. Manufacturing IPODs. Manufacturing CDs & DVDs. Downloading music. Lighting music halls and powering amplifiers. Clearly music is an unnecessary waste of energy - it all should be outlawed!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHang in there. (Am I the first orchestral musician to come across this article?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany people crave/need background noise.
The study of harmonic and melodic sound is difficult and worthwhile.
What does "discordant thought" in the last paragraph mean?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes it mean there are pros and cons to mall music's contribution to climate change?
I'm not a native speaker of English. If you don't mind, please give me an answer.
What about the construction process? While the numbers in this article are somewhat sensational, I agree with the comments above: there are many other things to worry about. Anyhow, shop locally!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLuca Semprini
What about the construction process? While the numbers in this article are somewhat sensational, I agree with the comments above: there are many other things to worry about. Anyhow, shop locally!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLuca Semprini
www.poweringanation.org
unturnedstone, David Biello is saying that if the malls would change their light bulbs, then his complaint of "mall music's contribution" would diminuendo. (Er, I'm writing from a practice room in a music school - I mean he would become quiet.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt isn't so much the <b>music</b> per se which is the problem. It's the waste of trying to control temperature and using too much light - or that's what I interpret.
Thank you for the answer, clrbear430.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut I still can't understand well why the word "discordant" is used.
In light of your answer, I thought "discordant" in this context means "not important" or "irrelevant" or something. Is this right?
You're welcome.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps he used discordant due to its similarity to the musical term chord? The word chord, however, is a Greek term (chordḗ) for gut or string, while discordant is Latin (discordāns).