The Hour With No Power

Recently, we unexpectedly lost our power for a couple hours.  Of course it was timely and happened just as we started making dinner.  We managed to make dinner on a portable gas burner and actually had some fun with the kids without any electricity.  We opened up the blinds and let in the natural light, played with a wind-up radio and had a blast brushing our teeth with flashlights.  It really got me thinking about how wasteful we often are with our power.  We turn on lights and leave them on even when no one is in the room.  Devices are plugged in when we aren’t really using them.  Do we really need to use all that electricity?

We recently received an email about a world-wide event to collectively reduce our carbon footprint, Earth Hour.  Basically, you sign-up and at 8:30pm, Saturday March 28, 2008 , turn off your lights for one hour.  According to the website, there are no hard and fast rules.  You can do anything you want in that hour just as long as the lights are off.  Currently, 1760 cities and towns in 80 countries have already signed up to participate.   Need a reason to participate, here it is right from the organization:

Why Participate?

Earth Hour is a symbolic event. Turning off our lights for an hour won’t stop climate change but it does demonstrate that our individual action is important and adds up to make a big difference. More importantly, it sends a very powerful message to government and world leaders that people want policies and regulations put in place that can achieve meaningful emission reduction to help fight climate change.

We hope you will have an hour to spare to make a global stand to help fight climate change.

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