Earth Hour ‘09
Written by Annie on March 28th, 2009Earth Hour just ended about half an hour ago, and I’m glad that I participated this year. From 8:30 to 9:30, I turned off all the lights in my house.
I first heard about the idea last year, but I didn’t participate in Earth Hour ‘08 because my family had friends over from Calgary and we were out for dinner for the duration of the event.
I’ll admit that I don’t think that an individual turning off the lights for an hour makes much of a difference. I don’t feel guilty about not participating last year. But I love global events! I was so inspired when I heard that even the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, prominent structures in their respective cities’ skylines, were turning off the lights too.
I was hoping on participating in the local lantern walk, which is basically walking a couple kilometers with a bunch of other people, and you bring your own candle or lantern to guide the way. Though it’s not like the street lights won’t be on. However, I discovered that the route was too far to walk to, and didn’t have much parking along the way.
So what did I do for Earth Day ‘09? (not much, really)
Took a walk in the park with my mother. It’s not very Earth-Day-ish because we do this all the time anyway. The not so bright park lights were on, and so were a few lights in the houses by the park. We kept making sarcastic comments about this.
Took a new route. We ventured off into the road less taken towards the shopping plaza. And I discovered a pretty cool tunnel. It looks like a nice place to have a small party.
Walked around in the brightly lit shopping plaza. I guess they don’t celebrate Earth Hour. The shops were all closed, so it was only me and my mother in the whole plaza. It felt nice. I don’t think that the point of Earth Hour is to hang out somewhere with light, but what the heck. I turned off my own lights.
I also struggled to find the right keys and my sneakers in the darkness of my house, before heading out.
Did you participate in Earth Hour ‘09?
29
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My family forgot about it, but I didn’t really care if we participated or not.
Going for walks and discovering new things is always nice!
29
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I half-participated in it, I switched off all the lights but she left the TV on cause she was watching a show. It’s a good idea in concept, but I’m a little worried if everyone turning on their lights at the same time causes a huge surge in like, pollution or something, I dunno.
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I participated, but my brother was on the computer and the rest of my family didn’t care and watched TV.
I guess if this doesn’t help, at least we’re more aware of trying to save the environment, and yes, a lot of people do care. Maybe it inspired someone to be more green, and organize a global even that actually does help.
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Hey Annie, thanks for stopping by my blog!
Funny, I was with some family last night and Earth Hour was discussed, but decided against. Dinner in the dark would have been a bit weird. I’d never heard of Earth Hour until a first-year uni English class last term required me to write a rhetorical analysis on a critical editorial of the event.
In the end, yesterday, the general consensus was that if I sleep for an extra hour one night this week and thus have the lights off for one less hour, the effect will be the same. It’s mostly about awareness.
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I didn’t participate in Earth Hour this year too because I was on the highway going home… I did last year though and forced my parents to as well!
31
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I didn’t have the chance to participate on that though I wanted to because I’m doing a report that time while my parents were busy doing the house chores. So yeah. Failure.
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Lizzy - I like that thinking! (about the extra hour of sleep) That’s smart.
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I heard about Earth Day courtesy of Facebook, last minute, but honestly, I don’t think an hour is enough of a commitment. Now, let’s talk about 24 hours without electricity. That’s something. Thousands, if not millions of people do it everyday. Besides, most people are out of the house more than a few hours a day anyway, so really, what significance is there to an hour? Normally I’m more likely to take what little people will give, you know, the whole “better than nothing” mentality, but really a lot of people seldom give enough. Blah, blah blah! Guess this makes me a cynic.