earth hour

there are so many hours and days dedicated to drawing attention to the many and varied concerns and issues prevalent in our world, that it becomes a real challenge for the devoted environmentalist, the social activist, the person wanting to end famine or all the other worthy concerns to attend fully and meaningfully to them all.

one such worthy event is the upcoming earth hour. originating in sydney, australia, the inaugural event took place in 2007 when 2.1 million people and 2100 sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour. it is estimated that this reduced the cities’ energy consumption by 10.2% or the equivalent of 48, 000 cars off the road for one hour.

this event is now becoming a more worldwide acknowledgement of the need to cut back our fossil fuel consumption and corollary carbon footprint, by turning off our lights wherever we live or work for one hour.

my calculations show me that given that there are 24 hours in a day, when multiplied by the seven days of a week we have 168 hours and multiplied by 52 weeks of a year, gives us 8,736 hours a year (8,760 hours in a leap year).

the question then jumps out and begs to be asked - why one hour a year? why not one hour a month? why not one hour a week? a day? what would be the effect of a more regular event on the health of our planet? well, we do what we can and begin somewhere.

earth hour takes place on march 29th between the hours of 8 and 9 pm in toronto. other cities that have committed to this plan include copenhagen, chicago, melbourne, brisbane, tel aviv, and manila. for more information, downloadable posters and other items, here's the main page for earth hour.