Turn off your lightsEarth Hour: March 29, 8 pm
i was reading the British columbia Real Estate News when this article caught my eye! Apparently BC Hydro is a world leader in energy conservation, and has become an active participant in Earth Hour 2008. BC Hydro is encouraging residents, businesses and organizations in BC to turn off their lights and other electricity-consuming devices for one hour on Saturday, March 29, from 8 to 9 pm.
Earth Hour, run by the World Wide Fund for Nature, was created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced: global warming. On March 31, 2007, 2.2 million people and 2,100 businesses in Sydney, Australia turned off their lights for Earth Hour. This massive collective effort reduced Sydney's energy consumption by 10.2 per cent for one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for 60 minutes.
Inspired by the collective effort of millions of Sydneysiders, many major global citiesincluding Vancouverhave joined Earth Hour in 2008, turning a symbolic event into a global movement.
Residents, businesses and organizations in BC can participate by:
To learn more about ways to conserve energy in everyday life, as well as BC Hydros Power Smart residential programs such as mail-in rebates, the refrigerator buy-back program, ENERGY STAR windows, PST exemptions and Power Smart New Homes, visit http://listserv.realtorlink.ca/t/5167/231330/326/0/ .
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Liz - I like that a lot. I will participate.
Thanks.
Marzena - its a small thing isn't it ? yet a good reminder on how to be conscious of how we're using our resources! Thanks for commenting.
Liz, that's great. Wouldn't it be cool to find out the estimate of savings from that one hour? I'm going to check the links out.
Liz, I just read this on the site:
If every household in B.C. turned off four lights for one hour, we would save enough electricity to wash approximately one million dishwasher loads.
That's incredible.
Wow - Debbie - so a better heading might have been - how to do one million dishwasher loads for free? lol thanks, Liz
LOL! Liz, there you go! We put a high efficiency system in when we built 5 years ago and I'm amazed at how low our bill is per month. Shutting those lights off does help.
I'm a pragmatist so I must propose an alternate to the lights out approach. Leave the lights on and spend the hour at home weatherstripping, caulking, air sealing for draft reduction, or adding some insulation somewhere. That's true energy conservation that will last much more than an hour sitting in the dark.
Liz, what a great idea. It's too bad that we can't get everyone in North America to do something like this at some point. I don't know, maybe I'm just dreaming too big.
Larry - I'd love tohave someone 'handy' come and do that....great idea! smile Then again sitting inthe dark for an hour might be fun! lol
Bill - Actually thats a good idea........maybe we can? We could do a blogathon........and display on every site we could find.........that would be some kind of project...........voluntary power outtage! :-)
Hi Liz, Wonderful post! Hopefully commenting tonight will help bring it back to the top of the scroll list for more views. I'm in... I love sitting in the dark, myself! I do a lot of "fireless camping" and "blind" night hikes with my kids in an effort to help familiarize them and help them become comfortable in the dark. It truly heightens the other senses! Did you see the report of the giant ice breakage in Antarctica the other day? Apparently the size of a couple of Long Islands...could be seen from space satellites. The breakage is attributed to global warming. I have some fear for my future grandchildren, should we continue to deny. Glacier National Park is becoming void of glaciers. How sad! Thanks for your attention to this matter.
Bo: Hey Bo......familiarizing your kids with the dark....how cool......I never thought of it that way....But I remember having my kids wear blindfolds for an hour........to get a sense of what it would be like to be blind - and they too talked about the heightened awareness.......when you can't see, every other sense takes on an acuteness.......
Didn't hear about the ice breakage........i'll go google it to find out more.......grandchildren......hmmm.....I don't often think that far into the future.........maybe i should...?..:-)
Thanks for reading, and sharing!
Hi Liz, I used to be an open unit experiential counselor with pre-adolescents and adolescents in an inpatient psychiatric facility for many years. Basically, I took a lot of extremely acute behavioral and emotional kids into the woods for 6 months to a year at a time, and taught them to be a positively based community, through adventure based therapy. Certified white water rafting/canoeing guide, National Outdoor Leadership certified, rock climbing, spelunking, ROPES course, and extensive backpacking and horse-packing were all a part of my former life, so I get to utilize all kinds of cool skills with my kids, and teach them a bunch of neat stuff (in my opinion!), so that's where my background for some of the "off the wall" activities I sometimes refer to come into play...Did you find the ice article? This is one link (if I do it right) http://www.universetoday.com/2008/03/28/break-up-of-antarctic-ice-shelf/
Liz, it looks like a LOT of people got the word and millions participated in this! Imagine if we did this several times a year, every month, what a difference it could make.
We gropped around in the dark for one whole hour...ir was great.. reminded me of the powerstrikes in the UK when I was growing up!
Debbie: Yes, when I read about it I thought it was something relatively localized........I had no idea it was so huge..........started in Australia last year - where they turned off the lights on the Sydney Opera House, and Harbour Bridge.......to the Phillipines........were it was like a New Years Celebration.........pretty amazing............I agree - if they did it say the first Monday of every month for an Hour! Wow
Anne and Eddie: Hmm you 'gropped around in the dark'.....? smile...........now that sounds like fun! Powerstrikes in the UK>>> now that you mention it I remember something about that here too.......nobody put out Christmas lights one year (thats the part I remember as a kid! ).....:-)
Debbie: Yes, when I read about it I thought it was something relatively localized........I had no idea it was so huge..........started in Australia last year - where they turned off the lights on the Sydney Opera House, and Harbour Bridge.......to the Phillipines........were it was like a New Years Celebration.........pretty amazing............I agree - if they did it say the first Monday of every month for an Hour! Wow
Anne and Eddie: Hmm you 'gropped around in the dark'.....? smile...........now that sounds like fun! Powerstrikes in the UK>>> now that you mention it I remember something about that here too.......nobody put out Christmas lights one year (thats the part I remember as a kid! ).....:-)