Imagine you've been granted your own private viewing of the Rose Art Museum collection. As you embark on your tour of some of the art world's greatest creations, you feel around in your pocket and you realize that you are carrying a Sharpie marker. Feeling incredibly rebellious, you decide that when your tour guide is not looking, you will draw a tiny black dot on the biggest painting you see. You are confident that there is no way you will get caught. Your minor vandalism does not detract from the overall quality of the art piece.I think it's fairly obvious that most people in their right minds would never think it appropriate to draw tiny black dots on paintings, even if they have something against the Rose. Most people would refuse to vandalize a painting because we all have a moral conscience. Our sense of right and wrong tells us that even adding the most insignificant blemish to a painting is morally reprehensible. This may be called the absolutist perspective; that is to say, certain actions are absolutely wrong, no matter how minimal their consequences.

However, when this moral lesson is applied to our lovely planet, the message seems lost.

This past week, the University celebrated the earth and did its part to help the environment. There was a plethora of activities on campus, including a "Green Labs Fair" and a "Heller School Arbor Day," both geared toward the same message: Green is good.

In Sherman Dining Hall, there was even a delicious green Earth Day cake (it was the last act of a week-long celebration that featured a different environmentally-friendly message every day). Everyone was happy to pig out, including myself.

But the mood was quite different in Sherman Dining Hall on the second day of our weeklong earth celebration. This is because the managers in Sherman had the creative idea of dimming the lights for the entire day.

Most people I spoke to were pretty perturbed. This definitely was a dimmer on the celebration (pun intended). And, if I'm perfectly honest with myself, I was slightly annoyed, too. The general feeling that I got from most people was that turning off the lights simply made no difference in our campaign for the environment. Many people-including myself-operate under the logical assumption that the Earth's outlook cannot be affected by the actions of one person. If I left my lights on all day, every day, the damage to the environment would be minimal. This may be called the consequentialist perspective-that is to say, an action is considered ethical based on what its results will be.

Why put us through all of this inconvenience if this one, tiny action of turning the lights off doesn't really help the environment very much? It took some playing devil's advocate on my part to arrive at an answer: I had been viewing the situation from the wrong angle. The lights were not actually turned off in Sherman to save electricity. The money saved, as well as the aid to the environment, was definitely minimal. What the managers of Sherman instead wanted was to raise awareness.

This is because the Earth is just like that painting in the Rose Art Museum. We all carry around "Sharpie markers"-that is to say, we all have the ability to vandalize the environment around us with poor choices. But the truth is that these poor choices would have a very small affect on the environment around us. Just like the painting isn't really ruined by a tiny dot, the Earth would definitely not be ruined if you left your lights on all day.

But nonetheless, just like we have a moral conscience when it comes to the paintings in the Rose (at least most of us do), doesn't it make sense, to have a moral conscience when it comes to the Earth? Just as no one would draw on that painting with their Sharpie, it should not sit well with any of us if the Earth's resources are wasted. Certain acts are just plain wrong, regardless of how harmless their consequences are.

The managers of Sherman were trying to enlighten us (again, pun intended). They were not attempting to save the Earth's resources or money on the electricity bill. Turning the lights off sent a clear message: Don't think that you're exempt from treating the environment well. Don't be a crass consequentialist. Instead, view the situation from an abso-----lutist perspective: It's never right to vandalize the earth. This idea may be the essence of Earth Day. And if it took turning off the lights to make the point, then so be it.