Light Pirate

Lately I've been overcome with urges to turn off lights. Sometimes when I don't have anything better to do I just walk around buildings and turn off all the unused lights (you'd be surprised how many there are). Anyways, an idea occurred to me just the other day as I was making my rounds. I remember a professor I had in a design class talked about making people more aware of the energy they use (or waste). His idea was some kind of resistance in the switch so it would be harder to flip the longer the light was left on. That way, when someone forgets to turn off a light, they are reminded of it when they finally turn it off. The main problem with the system as it exists today is our energy is just too cheap. This is indicated by the fact that we use SO much of it when we could easily cut our use in half and feel almost no impact on our standard of living.
During the day people should turn off the lights and open the blinds! This takes no electricity, almost no effort, and the natural light is much more pleasant to work/be in.
If our energy cost was higher (as to reflect the damage to the environment (which is priceless) ) it would increase people's awareness of how much they actually use (although, as a side note, I'm not proposing we make energy unfordable for the poor, rather we possibly have a per capita energy amount that you can get for today's price, and then beyond that the price increases (as to eliminate frivolous usage) ). Same goes for water; it's WAY too cheap. Same, needless to say, for fossil fuels. Even if it didn't slow the massive consumption of all of these things (which economics dictates it WOULD), it would at least give increased profits, profits which could be used to find cleaner, cheaper and better energy technologies.

Anyways....

The idea I had is this:
What if there was a company who paid people to turn off lights. It would be great, people would turn off lights wherever they went - it would be like finding money on the ground (but you don't have to bend over to get it). The money would come from the people who left the light on but weren't using it. Sooooo as opposed to the energy companies getting the money, it would go to the do-gooder who turned off the unused lights.
Now obviously this type of system will never be implemented (for obvious reasons) but hey, it sure is something to think about. I just wish people understood that we pay a lot more for our energy than that little figure you see at the bottom of your monthly bill.