Revolving

At least once a week I pass through the doors of E25, either to visit our partners in Community Wellness or just to take the shortcut over to the Kendall Square T stop. The revolving door stands stationary most of the time, while streams of people move quickly through the standard swinging door next to it. Every swing of the door lets heated air out and gusts of cold wind in. There is a little sticker on the door reminding us that using the revolving door could help MIT conserve 75% of the energy lost from the swinging doors. It receives very little notice, other than a comment in pen that technically “energy is always conserved.”

According to MIT Facilities, just using the revolving doors in E25 could save $7500 a year and reduce MIT’s emissions by 15 tons of C02. We need to keep the standard doors with their push buttons for handicapped access. But for the members of our community who are physically able to push the revolving door, it only takes a few extra seconds.

But those extra seconds are the real point of it. $7500 isn’t much compared to one student’s tuition, much less the budget of a large and innovative university. And 15 tons of CO2 is slightly less than one American citizen’s typical carbon footprint. Using the revolving door isn’t going to change the world. What it can do is to slow us down for a moment.

Instead of rushing mindlessly towards the next very important thing in our own lives, we can remember for a moment that we’re not the only ones affected by our choices. Our energy choices affect the people who live nearby, next to the MIT power plant, and further away, in the places where our natural gas is extracted, and out into the world, where the poorest humans and most vulnerable species are the first to lose out to climate change. Perhaps for a moment, we can slowly turn our own minds and wills a little closer to making real change.

 

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