What were you doing on Saturday March 29th from 8-9pm?
If you can’t answer that question off the top of your head then odds are you weren’t participating in Earth Hour ‘08. Last year in Sydney for one hour in the evening more than 2.2 million people and 2100 businesses turned off their lights for an hour to show their commitment to taking action against global warming. By turning off lights on the Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, and at local residences and businesses they caused a 10.2% energy reduction that night.
Their success led to nearly 30 cities joining them this year, along with many individuals around the world, to make Earth Hour ‘08 a global event. Perhaps you’re wondering why with only 2 Asian cities officially participating, Bangkok and Manila, and only about 300,000 people joining, this really matters. Perhaps your thinking to yourself, turning off the lights for one hour, while leaving the fridge, computer, or even TV on, is a pretty pointless exercise. To be honest your probably right as far as the immediate impact this event had on lowering the amount of fossil fuels burned. Even if each of these people could turn off all the electricity in their home for the year, walk everywhere, give up their jobs, and only eating twigs, the sad fact is they wouldn’t change much of anything directly.
But that was never the point. And that’s why Earth Hour ‘08 was in fact successful. The point is to draw attention to a problem that’s far bigger than any one person’s consumption. The resources of the Earth are growing scarcer and without government intervention and business interests’ being aligned with our changed individual consumption there is no way it’s going to get better. Unfortunately governments and businesses have yet to be convinced that change is what we really want. They may hear us asking for for it, but they watch as we continue to consume more and more everyday and are convinced we really aren’t so excited about making changes if it means a little sacrifice on our parts.
Earth Hour ‘08 was a success because it begins to show governments and businesses that we are willing to change and that we do care. But one hour is not enough. We need to make these changes every day of our lives, and we need to make sure that others take notice. Let’s start now to spread the word about Earth Hour ‘09, plan activities with our friends to celebrate, and do our part to contribute to the betterment of the whole world.
Sign up for the WWF’s Earth Hour ‘09 and see pics from Earth Hour ‘08 at http://www.earthhour.org/
If anyone has pics of themselves celebrating Earth Hour ‘08 in China let us know by posting a link!