Lighting during Earth Hour
Earth Hour ended up being a lot of fun. My folks and my partner and I went for a late afternoon walk in the woods. The Thousand Islands area is on the Canadian Shield. Meandering through the woods means making your way over tumbled chunks of rock covered in colourful lichens, surrounded by thick, spongy mosses, strewn with fragrant pine needles. Unfortunately, where my folks live, there is an out-of-control deer population, so one must steer clear of little round droppings everywhere.
After our walk, we prepped dinner on the barbecue and chopped up a salad. It’s pretty hard to eat locally in Ontario at this time of year – the winter stores have just about run out and nothing’s in the ground yet to harvest. But at least by cooking off the grid we minimized our power usage on Earth Hour night!
Dinner prep ticked into the final minutes leading up to Earth Hour, but we soon flicked off the last couple of lights and lit some candles. And then we started thinking of things that might be drawing power around the house! Before long, flashlights in hand, people were dispatched to unplug the DVD player and TV, and anything else potentially drawing power. It was a good exercise in thinking about all of the electronics and appliances that steal away a little power all the time.
I think the candlelight made for great dinner conversation. With the gentle candlelight flickering across our faces, illuminating the area around us and not much more, it’s no surprise we were focused on one another, and the lights were out well after Earth Hour was officially over.
Back in Toronto, I was thrilled to see everyone’s evident interest in Earth Hour — a 15 per cent power reduction, about double last year’s achievement. Congratulations, everybody! Here’s a video of Earth Hour’s lights out around the world.
What did you do for Earth Hour?
