Editor note: America the Beautiful is at her best in December when billions of tiny stringed light bulbs turn darkness into magnificent beauty and celebration. Holiday lighting is a great social offering—a positive externality in the jargon of economics—given by many to all. With the increasing sustainability of energy, beginning with the fossil-fuel family, celebrate with the lights on!

Forget the holiday-lighting humbug from the deep ecologists who say:

I’ve reached the point of feeling like a Scrooge; feeling outrage over the tons of C02 going into the atmosphere via neighbors’ 10,000 light displays rather than feeling ‘joyous’.”

And:

Actually, here comes the Scrooge bit.… But aside from light pollution, a substantial environmental footprint is created by what the Energy Saving Trust terms an ‘extravagant light display’, which translates into the generation of 400kg of extra CO₂….