Our Earth Hour
Did you even hear about this? I only found out by accident yesterday when researching dishwashers on the Sears website and saw a link to the Earth Hour page on the WWF website. I clicked through and found out about this amazing event – turning off the lights from 8-9 pm on Saturday and taking a stand against climate change.
The event was pioneered in Sydney, Australia last year, and went worldwide this year. Here’s what Toronto looked like before 8pm:
And during Earth Hour:
Cool, eh?
And how did my town, Calgary, do?
Shitty. The City of Calgary said they would turn off non-essential lights in city buildings, but I wonder; why are they not doing that every weekend? In Calgary tonight, none of the big office towers turned off their lights (again, why are they all lit up on a weekend?) and the Saddledome was home to a fully-lit, raucous game of hockey.
Well, here in my family, we observed Earth Hour. We turned off all the lights, TVs and other electrical appliances…pretty much everything except our clocks. Daddy lit candles, and we read Horton Hears a Who to the girls before sitting quietly with them while they fell asleep.
It was unbelievable, the sense of quiet stillness in our house. It was like in those special-effects sequences you see in movies, where the whole world is rushing around in fast-forward, except one person is moving slowly, slowly. I felt, for the first time in at least a week, a sense of real peace; and real quiet. An hour to enjoy my family with absolutely no distractions. An hour to take a few moments of silence for myself beside my sleeping children. An hour to talk with my husband.
I can’t wait to do it again.
We turned off all power and played a board game by candlelight in my house (in Calgary). the fact that electricity consumption went up compared to a week ago is disappointing – until you remember that it was 10 degrees warmer the previous week, and heating homes/businesses does take a fair amount of electricity. And yes, the hockey game that night was important to hockey fans and I think it was a factor.
Office buildings being lit up on weekends and evenings is a problem in all cities, not just Calgary. And many were turned off for Earth Hour (it is hard to find a good picture of this, but I’ve seen at least one that clearly shows a darker downtown). We’ll do better next year, I’m confident!
I’m sure the PM turned them ALL ON on purpose, to make a point. Like Ezra Levant who drives a Hummer, to make a point.
Who VOTES for these people??!?!?
Power consumption in Calgary actually increased (!) during Earth Hour – go figure! I admit, we forgot – it would have been nice to see a bit more publicity. During that hour, we were playing games together as opposed to using the multitude of electronics (tv’s, computers, etc) that are usually plugged in around here, so could have been worse, and we’ll do better next year (I hope!).
We were out eating at a restaurant on Yonge St. and we didn’t see a single light go out. We were thinking it would have been pretty romantic…candle lit dinner and all? Too bad. Our neighbourhood was pretty pitch black though and glad to see downtown did well.
We also turned everything off, lit candles and just chatted. I read in today’s paper that the Prime Minister had all lights blazing in his house. Figures.