How did you spend Earth Hour?
So there was a lot of buzz this week leading up to Earth Hour. From what I understand there were events, concerts, and celebrations in some areas. While I understand the motivation, Drew Beatty had it right in his blog post yesterday when he suggested that the energy used for the big events was ridiculous and in many ways was counter to the purpose. And what about all those candles:
Lots and lots of people are going to be burning candles tonight. Remember that paraffin (most cheap candles are made of this) is a by-product of petroleum. In other words, candles ain’t clean either. And flashlights? Well, are you just going to toss those batteries when you are done?
So how do you spend Earth Hour? Did you observe it at all or carry on as normal or attend a community event?
For my part, I turned off all lights, computers, television for the hour. I lay on the sofa with an audio book on my mp3 player (which has a rechargeable battery) and just had a really peaceful hour.
The point of the event is to remind people that just the simple act of remembering to Flick Off a light when you’re not using it can save a lot of energy. I wonder how many people will remember the message in a week or a month’s time? Will this exercise and the buzz surrounding it have a lasting impact?
I certainly hope so. Whether you look at it from a global viewpoint or a personal viewpoint saving energy saves money as well as saving our planet.
Confession time… despite the best of intentions, and yes I did indeed turn off lights (and electronics) during Earth Hour… I woke up at 6am this morning to discover I’d fallen asleep with my reading lamp on again. So… my lights were off for an hour but a reading lamp was on all night. One step forward. Three steps back.
You still did great. Imagine if you had left all the lights on and fallen asleep?
The boys went to a baseball game which allowed us girls to turn off all the lights, open the windows to enjoy the lovely 74 degree weather. We snuggled on the couch and watched Disney movies. It was a nice quiet night.
I didn’t bother to participate. In the end I decided it was a mostly useless gesture. I’m already in the habit of turning off lights when not in the room or when not needed, using energy efficient bulbs, and recycling, so that already does more over all that turning off the lights for an hour. Actually I went to bed about an hour or two early last night, so same effect, just a little late.
It seems to me that the folks who participated, or at least a large number of them, are the folks that are already trying to do their part: flicking off lights, recycling, using energy efficient bulbs, etc.
I turned off the lights and went to battery on the laptop, after the hour was over, I turned on my LED bulb and used that only for the rest of the evening, it’s not very bright, but it’s enough to type by.
I spent that hour and three hours before that calming people down and telling them that “NO! POWER WILL NOT BE CUT FOR THAT HOUR. IT’S ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY”.
A few news channels and papers here had put it out as “Whole cities across the world will go dark”, which was convulated to the point when it lost it’s meaning in translation…