Earth [h]our
March 28th, 2008 Posted in Climate / Human habitat
Voluntarily plunging into an hour of darkness….no, this isn’t a thrill-seekers adrenaline boost. It is Andy Ridley’s idea for raising awareness about global warming.
Some 2.2 million people participated in last year’s ‘Earth Hour’ in Sydney, cutting the central business district’s energy usage by more than 10 percent.
It is hoped that the movement would expand in 2009, which would be a particularly significant year since it is the deadline for United Nations talks to determine action going forward on the topic of climate change, as set after the Kyoto Protocol.
I (and our household) observe a sabbath from electricity one day out of seven, starting Friday at dusk and ending Saturday at nightfall. It works out to be about 25 hours where we refrain from driving our car, turning on lights, heating water, cooking, or using other electricity-run appliances. We do use an average size crock-pot for our hot lunch food during the day on Saturday, and some lights are set on timers so we can tend to the children. We also do heat the house (but don’t adjust the thermostat) since we have a baby. Our gasoline use is already low since my partner works from home and I walk to work- I work where the kids attend school so that’s easy. We get a tank of gas monthly, lately thats been ~$50 worth in our one vehicle.
So although we take time off from using some electricity, I wonder if we over-compensate by doubling up on laundry on Sundays, doing more errands during the week, and so on. Tim Blair and others
have a healthy skepticism as well.
But I would imagine for those people who do are used to having electricity immediately at their fingertips ALL the time, turning it off, even for one hour during the Earth Hour event tomorrow, will be a fascinating and [sorry...] enlightening experience!
Tags: Australia, Earth hour, Ecology, energy, global warming, Tim Blair
