| 209 | Earth Hour, 2010 | 2010-03-31 |
For Earth Hour 2010, we were at home. My wife was tired and went to bed before 8 and I was left alone to celebrate.
As the hour approached, I turned off all of the lights. The house was completely dark. I stepped outside to see if it seemed darker than normal, it didn’t. Scanning up and down the street, I could not tell if neighbors were observing Earth Hour or were just gone for the evening. It really didn’t matter. I was participating.
Earth Hour 2010 inspired an estimated one billion people, organizations, corporations and governments to come together and take a strong stance against climate change. Starting in New Zealand and following the sun around the globe, Earth Hour asked everyone to do something quite simple—turn off the lights at 8:30 p.m. local time. Just one hour for an individual, and 24 hours for the whole world.
Earth Hour asked citizens of the world to do nothing - absolutely and literally nothing. We didn’t have to send cards, buy gifts, or decorate the house. Participation did require action though. To do nothing, as in to neutralize our consumption rate, we had to do something. We had to flip switches.
Coming back inside from checking out the neighborhood, I re-checked the house and made sure all of the lights were off. With nothing else to do, I thought I might as well do more. Beginning in the living room, (by headlamp) I unplugged the television and made sure all the other media appliances were non-consumers. Next was the kitchen, everything looked good, then suddenly the chiller on the refrigerator started. I quickly killed the ice box. Then to the office, with seemingly thousands of hardware devices and chargers all were lit and on standby. I had already shut down the main computer and hard drives, now I brought down the rest. I went on to check the bathrooms, the basement, and the bedrooms (I had to be real quiet as Amy was sleeping.) With minutes to go, I went to the garage to make sure nothing else was consuming.
Oops, it was after 9:30. It was time to turn everything back on!
Participating in Earth Hour for me became an awareness hour. We use so much. It was very difficult to reduce our consumption to zero and even harder to return to being users. I still do not have all the clocks and timers reset! But, I guess, "that’s what its all about!"
We hope you found time to do nothing, too!
Happy moon lit trails - lights out!