It is Earth Hour tonight from 8:30, will you be taking part?
What is Earth Hour? Earth Hour is a global movement uniting people to protect the planet. Towards the end of March every year, Earth Hour brings together communities from across the world celebrating a commitment to the planet by switching off lights for one designated hour.
When does Earth Hour take place? Earth Hour 2013 will be held on Saturday 23 March between 8.30PM and 9.30PM in your local time zone.
What does Earth Hour aim to achieve? Earth Hour aims to encourage an interconnected global community to share the opportunities and challenges of creating a sustainable world.
What does Earth Hour ask people to do? Earth Hour encourages individuals, businesses and governments to show leadership on environmental solutions through their actions, to use Earth Hour as a platform to showcase to the world what measures they are taking to reduce their environmental impact. Earth Hour asks everyone to take personal accountability for their impact on the planet and make behavioural changes to facilitate a sustainable lifestyle. Taking the first step is as easy as turning off your lights. By switching off your lights for Earth Hour you are acknowledging and celebrating your commitment to do something more for the planet that goes beyond the hour.
Candles are out, even in the washroom. Wine is in the decanter. Having a candle light dinner with good friends and cooking on the BBQ. Happy earth hour everybody.
I am not participating in Earth Hour. I will be watching a movie tonight with all the lights on and the stove set to 500 with the door open, hummer in the driveway idling. I’ll flush the toilet 3 times a pee and I’ll be drinking a lot and throwing the bottles in the trash with all my dead batteries.
I’ll turn all the lights off, turn the computer off and read a book by candle light.
I’m putting on my cranky-pants to say, I find Earth Hour to be a bit of a joke. While I appreciate the idea behind it, really? Only one hour? Is this just to make us feel good that we somehow did our part? How about we make concerted efforts every day to lessen our footprints on the environment? I guess I’m trying to say that Earth Hour is kind of like doing a fad diet for one day, then continuing usual bad eating habits as regular routine.
Yup, it does make a tiny difference, but the difference would be astronomical if we ALL did even the basics (putting recycling where it belongs, composting wherever possible, turning off lights when leaving a room, keeping heat and cooling at conservative levels). Those things cost nothing, and don’t really inconvenience us, but cumulatively can have an exponentially larger impact than one hour of turning everything off.
There’s my rant. Please bear in mind that I’m not against Earth Hour, I simply think it needs to be a lifetime commitment rather than 60 measly minutes.
I really don’t understand why earth hour isn’t on Earth Day, April 22 – that would only make sense, no?
I was asleep so… yeah.
I did not participate, for I believe what matters the most is what you do repeatedly, not just once a year. So every hour is the Earth hour to me.
I think it’s important to participate to show that you care. And yes, earth hour isn’t just about one hour, it’s one hour specifically to make an extra effort behind all your other efforts. Every hour most people do not turn off all their lights, spend time doing something not using any hydro, and spend quality time with family talking, playing a game… and showing an appreciation for the planet and electricity.
I participated last night. We had friends over for dinner and it was a good conversation starter as we all shared ways we work towards being more sustainable. As I use Bullfrog so that all of my electricity is wind generated it was not about turning off the lights for an hour but making an concentrated effort to reflect on my impact on the planet.
earth hour is a total crock
just an excuse to let people think they are ‘helping the world’ by making the minuscule sacrifice of no lights for a WHOLE HOUR! woop-de-doo.
personally, I’ll be like ‘Non Bandwagoner’: turn on the lights, crank on the heat, turn on two tvs, and laugh at all the idiot do-gooders thinking they are making a difference. pathetic.
I did not participate but I did want to comment….. the organizers of earth hour have stated that they do not measure the impact or energy savings of earth hour. They intend on it being an hour of worldwide unification during which we all consider the impact of our energy consumption on ourp:-) planet and perhaps become inspired to make some energy saving changes in their day to day lives.
Why are all of my comments moderated…….
I know that we should do more for the environment.
We see Earth Hour as a chance to get together with family or friends every year and turn off the lights. It’s more about love and caring. The kids do not get to watch a movie or play a K’nect game on the X-Box, but entertain each other otherwise by candlelight. We don’t have music in the background, expect that produced by grandma’s snoring since we are not a musical family. So it puts a nice twist on things and becomes a memorable evening with candles and glow sticks and pranks and story-reading and conversations.
What makes me sad is how aware we are of over-packaging and how it has not changed much in the past 20 years.
My garbage is not very full since I have a green bin, but my blue bin is still rather embarrassing.
I recycle by giving my kids’ clothes to friends, bringing old batteries to the school’s pick up spot, drop off glasses at the library, bring useless/defunct electronics to the e-waste recycling place in town, visit goodwill-value village-salvation army to get rid of old things, give toys to the school’s kindergarten classes, and so on. I even go to my second hand store to pick-up costumes and so on, or get skates from a recycler, but I still produce garbage.
Not only do I still produce garbage: I still buy strawberries out of season and love pineapples.
But I don’t leave the lights on all over the house. I make minimal use of the air conditioning and our furnace is lowered at night.
So let’s celebrate our love of the planet and of each other by dimming the lights once in a while, even if the effect is a little superficial.