Saturday, March 28, 2009

Earth Hour 2009


Is it too hard for us to
go without power
for an hour every day?



Thoughts the morning after Earth Hour;

Did I participate in Earth Hour from 8:30-9:30 PM?

No I didn't because I wanted to watch Ben Hur, a yearly ritual around here. Earlier in the evening my husband and I took a walk and then I watched the sun set while out on the deck.

Observing Earth Hour once a year is meaningless unless we take steps every day to use our resources wisely. It is like people who appear at church only on Easter Sunday each year to appease their spiritual conscience. In our home we have energy efficient appliances, light bulbs, a programable thermostat and switches that are used.

I was reading comments on news stories about Earth Hour and liked these two.

  • Places like in India have power failure on a daily basis which is equivalent to earth hour around the world. So why should people in India celebrate earth hour?
  • In our part of Africa, the lights are off every two hours for six hours or more...

I know our family in Mexico experience frequent power outages because of that country's overloaded grids. It is a way of life for them to be without electricity on a regular basis. Maybe we will be more serious about conserving when we have no choice. I don't think we need to turn the lights out from 8:30-9:30 every night, but we can be more conscious of our dependence on power during the course of each day.

9 comments:

  1. That makes sense, now that I see it in your post with the candle. It is a good ethic, the same as turning off the faucet to keep the water from running ... a no water hour. That would be easier now that I think about it.

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  2. Ruth,

    Thank you for promoting Earth Hour. I seldom have lights on in the evening, with the exception of my computer room, which is where I work. I try to conserve energy where I can and I really don't need lights on in every room of the house when I'm in here working or blogging.

    Hope you're enjoying our beautiful weather.

    Blessings,
    Mary

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  3. It reminded me of spending a week without power minus the fact that is wasn't cold in the house. You can adjust and I guess we should..

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  4. It was a good thing to do last night. I think it would take a bit of planning to do every night: candles at hand near a reading area maybe.

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  5. I'm very sad that it totally slipped my mind this year. Last year I had 7 kids on Earth Day and they were very into it.We played games by candle light. The kids were having so much fun that we ended up extending our earth hours into 3. I'm very aware of the energy I use everyday. There are so many little things we can do to preserve. It helps out the earth not to mention our own pocketbooks. I didn't find the hype in the media was as big this year.

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  6. My place is generally very energy efficient, and I often spend the evenings watching TV with one or no lights on, so it wasn't much of a stretch to light some candles and feel part of something global for an hour. But I agree, a lot more needs to be done the world over. Are you aware of the Orion Project - a group that is currently working on zero-point and other green and free energy technologies? If you don't know them, you can go to www.theorionproject.org or there's a link at the top of my blog.

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  7. Yes, it must be on a daily basis. We also have replaced our light bulbs and are much more conscious about the energy we are consuming. We wear sweaters and keep the thermostat lower. We all need to take as many measures as we possibly can.

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  8. I agree. Awareness and daily choices are most critical.

    We celebrated Earth Hour like you. Henry V was on and I did not want to miss the St. Crispan’s Day speech.

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  9. Very well said, Ruth. I agree. Even though the idea of a world-wide event sounds like a way of raising awareness, once a year really does not do much. I forgot as did many others. Hubby was watching hockey and it just slipped my mind.
    But, we are energy conscious all the rest of the year.

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