please empty your brain below
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Well said,DG. A wonderfuly ingenious way of announcing a newborn, who will be innocent until it is 'taught' otherwise.
Jo W | 30.06.17 - 7:33 a.m. | #
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What a wonderful idea - maybe more cities will adopt this.
NZer | 30.06.17 - 8:16 a.m. | #
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Perhaps at night the existing light intensity increases - the same way a brake light works.
Still anon | 30.06.17 - 8:39 a.m. | #
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That's wonderful - made me cry.
Thanks Alberto Garutti, the city of Ghent, and DG for sharing it.
Stephen | 30.06.17 - 8:57 a.m. | #
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As is implied in the blog, in certain places, the lights would be on more or less all the time. These would not then celebrate individual new lives but, the environmental impacts of the mass of those new lives.
B | 30.06.17 - 10:05 a.m. | #
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I hope more photos of that beautiful city to follow.
It's superb especially at night.
Jerym | 30.06.17 - 10:06 a.m. | #
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That's a handsome pillar box on the corner of the square.
Pimlico Pete | 30.06.17 - 11:16 a.m. | #
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It is not human births which have a drastic environmental impact. It is any excess of births over deaths. That would be very difficult to represent via lampposts.
But as DG conveys, a birth on its own is a beautiful thing, well worth celebrating.
malcolm | 30.06.17 - 12:30 p.m. | #
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Nope...deaths will never equal births if people live to older and older age and the health of poor populations improves (more live births). Brass monkeys can always deny everything.
B | 30.06.17 - 4:16 p.m. | #
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Yes, I agree that this works very nicely in a town such as Ghent. Not so sure about bigger places though.
And @B, brass monkeys thrive in Japan where the population is declining because, er, deaths outstrip live births....
Chris | 30.06.17 - 4:47 p.m. | #
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In 2014 there were 695,233 live births and 501,424 deaths registered in England and Wales.
The average age of giving birth is now over 30, and about a quarter of mothers were born outside the UK.
There were more deaths than births in 1976 and 1977 (why?). Apart from those years, and a near miss for a year or two in the 1940s, for the past century, there has always been comfortably more births than deaths in England and Wales.
http://visual.ons.gov.uk/birthsanddeaths/
We have to keep the lights on.
Andrew | 30.06.17 - 5:04 p.m. | #
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Well today's blog certainly is bringing us the good news from Ghent. What a lovely way of celebrating each new birth.
Sara | 30.06.17 - 5:38 p.m. | #
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Really lovely last paragraph of this post, almost poetic, thanks DG.
RayB | 30.06.17 - 8:50 p.m. | #
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What a beautiful post.
Welcome to the world, little one.
Cornish Cockney | 30.06.17 - 9:12 p.m. | #
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Even a so-called ‘easy’ birth is no picnic, for both mother and baby. Until the 20th century, childbirth was the leading cause of death for women under 40 and, in many cases, the baby didn’t survive either. If the purpose of art is to make you think, then yes, the lamp-light artwork has succeeded as far as I’m concerned.
Great Aunt Annie | 30.06.17 - 10:12 p.m. | #
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@ Andrew
"keep the lights on" ?!
More people means they more likely to go out!
As for the red pillar/post box...it massive; never seen one that big!
Grumpy Anon | 01.07.17 - 12:27 a.m. | #
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Japan....ha ha that old chestnut. Look folks....when populations start to get very large (overpopulation) there is not need for a 2.1 replacement rate. In fact, it is wise to encourage a falling birth rate. Look at the real stats for Japan (its a hard life but healthy!)
http://globalsherpa.org/150-year-old-japanese-in-abundance/
When I read this post, it did occur to me that some Belgians might actually regard the lights turning on as a public shaming. Light goes on, burns energy then fades out without doing anything to any purpose. Thus, new life ....uses resources...dies. Nice.
B | 01.07.17 - 10:21 a.m. | #
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Er, posting a link to an item of dubious origin that is seven years old does not hide the fact that Japan's population is shrinking and has been for some time.
Old chestnut it aint.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/business/japan-population-births.html
Chris | 01.07.17 - 8:27 p.m. | #
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