Earth Hour

I'm indebted to Anna*, one of my regular Commenters who recently told me about Earth Hour. This WWF event first happened last year in Sydney, where the city was pretty well blacked out when participants switched off their lights for an hour at 8pm. If you look at the link, it has a dramatic satellite shot of Sydney when the big switch off happened - what a difference!

This year the event goes global and you can join in too. Just turn off your lights for an hour at 8pm tomorrow (your local time) - perhaps have a candelight dinner (preferably with beeswax candles), or go to a movie, star gaze in your back garden, have a (ghostly) story telling session with friends and family - it's up to you and you can pat yourself on the back for a) participating in a global event alongside millions b) doing something about your carbon footprint and c) saving some cash off your energy bill.

As NAH is away at the moment, I've decided to have a relaxing candlelit aromatherapy bath. Mmmm - a rare treat! Oh, and if you live in the UK, don't forget that the clocks go forward early on Sunday morning, so we get two hour-linked events this weekend.

* As you know I like to provide a link to people I mention, but Anna doesn't leave one. She always provides an interesting comment often with a snippet of good information (such as the Earth Hour website address I've used in this post), so this is my chance to thank her properly for her contributions.

Update - Simon over at the Plot Thickens has commented there's been problems with the WWF link today. Hopefully it's because they're getting lots of hits. Apparently Google has turned out the lights on their site, but they do give a introduction to Earth Hour too if you're having difficulties with the above link. Thanks for the heads up Simon.

Comments

  1. Aunt Debbi/kurts mom29 March 2008 at 02:45

    Sounds like a good excuse to go outside and visit the neighbors. Thanks for the info, we will be joining in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous29 March 2008 at 12:23

    umm - I had forgotten about the clocks going forward. So thanks for the reminder.
    K

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous29 March 2008 at 12:23

    Hi VP. I thought you'd get to this before me. I found out about it by visiting Google this morning.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Esther Montgomery29 March 2008 at 14:35

    I've had this date on our calendar for a while - though I don't know how we'll approach it. It co-incides with our family story time in the run up to bed.

    Probably torches! (If the batteries last!)

    Esther Montgomery
    ESTHER IN THE GARDEN

    P.S. Wouldn't it have been good it it had been at a time which would affect businesses as well as families?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Silly Goose29 March 2008 at 17:19

    Hey VP, good post! Yes, the lights go out at 8pm at my house. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. VP29 March 2008 at 22:10

    Aunt Debbi - saw your post on the topic too. Great stuff.

    Karen - only too glad to remind you. I often forget too, so this is kind of a reminder to me too :)

    Simon - what a nice compliment and thanks for the link from your site too!

    Esther - hi and welcome! Story time games with torches sounds perfect! How old are they at the moment by the way? ;) I think WWF are actively trying to get business commitment to this as an ongoing thing, not just for an hour. FoE are doing a similar campaign in Bristol called the Big Switchoff...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Curmudgeon31 March 2008 at 04:21

    hello, I found my way to your blog via Blotanical. I laughed reading your Earth Hour post. We tried to have a relaxing candle lit hour at our house. The candles worked just fine. The quiet was a bit harder to come by. Enjoyed visiting your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous31 March 2008 at 22:55

    Thanks for speading the word and also for putting my name in 'lights' VP ! I hope that you enjoyed a peaceful dip in scented waters.

    ReplyDelete
  9. VP1 April 2008 at 20:09

    WWW - hello and welcome! I do like your name :) Will return the visit soon.

    Anna - only too glad to give you the credit and I did thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous1 April 2008 at 23:02

    Hiya, I'm a new visitor from Blotanical - v good blog.

    On Earth hour, we joined in and the kids really liked it so we might do it every month or something. My work made an effort to get everyone to power down on Friday and to shut down all non-essential things.

    ....but then there was also some interesting critiscm of the media reports from sydney last year that claimed to show a before and after photo which was actually doctored (alleged) or at least with the before taken a few days beforehand (due to offices shutting down power at Close of business on the Friday before the Earth Hour on Saturday!!!

    ah well, if it has an impact on peoples' peception and on energy use at that time I think it's great.

    Cheers and look forward to checking yr blog more.

    ReplyDelete
  11. VP6 April 2008 at 09:21

    Hi Nigeygreen - thanks for the visit and it sounds like you had a great time! I'll be over for a return visit soon...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Nature Concern17 March 2009 at 15:13

    Thanks for promoting Earth Hour! Another way you can recruit people to the cause is by creating a Earth Hour group on Commit21.com. Simply create a group about one action that you will commit to do for Earth Hour and recruit your friends, family, and co-workers to get involved in that action as well. When it comes to climate change, simple actions can make huge differences and Commit21 leverages social media to influence networks of friends, family, and co-workers. Check it out at www.commit21.com

    ReplyDelete
  13. VP24 March 2009 at 19:42

    Nature concern - thanks for the info.

    ReplyDelete

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