More than beyond the hour, how about beyond Earth Hour itself?

jhay — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:27:05 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Earth Hour as far as raising awareness about protecting our environment goes.

However, it’s method, which is encouraging everyone to turn off the non-essential lights and appliances in their homes, businesses etc for one hour in order to cut back on power usage, I find lacking if not merely symbolic.

It is claimed that by turning off our lights for one hour throughout the world electricity consumption will be reduced which will in turn reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Well that’s true if the power plants that run on fossil fuels also ‘switch off’ during the Earth Hour event.

When in reality it does not. And this is where the ‘magic’ of Earth Hour fades away. Gavin Atkins has a plain explanation as to why this is so:

So here’s the thing: coal-fired plants are not like cars that require only enough fuel to meet demand – they require the same amount of fuel all of the time.

Whether or not everybody turns all of their electrical appliances on or off, it makes no difference to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. All of our coal-fired power stations will continue to burn coal and create carbon dioxide at the same rate because that’s how they operate.

Sure, electricity consumption might dip, but not carbon dioxide emissions. If anyone tells you that Earth Hour saved any amount of carbon dioxide emissions, they are lying.

Sure, Earth Hour reduces megawatts of electricity world wide but it’s just for 60 minutes of a single day in a year. After the hour has passed, we all go back to our unsustainable lifestyles. And again, while those who participated had their lights off during Earth Hour, the power plants continued to burn fossil fuels and emitted greenhouse gases so that when the event was over, there’s a ready supply of electricity to make sure everything goes back to normal.

Like what I’ve said at the beginning, raising awareness is good. But I think people are aware enough by now that it’s a good time to move on from awareness raising into something more concrete.

Which is why I liked the theme for this year’s Earth Hour, “Beyond the Hour” it may not be beyond Earth Hour or turning lights off for an hour itself, but at the very least it’s a sign that things are progressing along towards more concrete actions towards protecting the environment.

And because this is now a yearly event, Earth Hour is now becoming more trivialized than ever. It’s remaining to be a mere symbolic event. Tonyo Cruz got it spot on when he tweeted:

Many Filipinos love Earth Hour. But the worst environment destroyers have inserted themselves in the event to deodorize their records.

March 26, 2011 7:06 pm via TweetDeck ReplyRetweetFavorite

@tonyocruz

Tonyo Cruz

The point is simple, it’s time to move beyond Earth Hour itself and do concrete steps for the environment. Lobbying for more power plants that use renewable energy is a good start.

Join the Earth Hour 2008

jhay — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:12:15 +0000

On 29 March 2008, the Philippines will join countries around the world as we literally “turn the lights out” for Earth Hour – an event that will fuel awareness on climate change and prove that when the people of the world work together, they can make a difference in the fight against global warming.

Earth Hour will take place throughout the Philippines from 8 to 9 in the evening on Saturday night, 29 March 2008. WWF invites you to participate by shutting off lights for 60 minutes, organizing your own “lights-out” event or by forwarding this mail to your friends, workmates and family.

Launched in Australia on the 31st of March 2007, Earth Hour moved 2.2 million people and 2100 businesses in Sydney to turn off their lights for one hour. This massive collective effort reduced the city’s energy consumption by 10.2% for one hour. With Sydney icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House turning their lights off and unique events such as weddings by candlelight, the world took notice. Inspired by the collective effort of millions of Sydneysiders, many major global cities are joining Earth Hour in 2008, turning a symbolic event into a global movement.

YOUR participation will go a long way in spreading the message that we, as individual droplets working collectively – can create an impetus far more powerful than the mightiest of rivers. For more information, log on to the WWF Earth Hour page at: www.earthhour.org.

Will you join?

Try it. It wouldn’t hurt for one hour that you would turn off the lights and everything else in your home. Heck, we Pinoys are used to power block-outs (brownouts as we call it) for hours even days on end. This may not be the solution to combat global warming and our alarming environmental degradation but what’s important is you’ll have something to start on.

Awareness is the first step.

Many bloggers have already blogged about this pledging their support. Kutserong Kulot, Josh Spear, Chemistry for a Sustainable World, Sasha Writes, Sonnie’s Porch and many more.

Of course there are also those who are against the Earth Hour and the anti-global warming movement, called skeptics and right-wing pundits, pseudo-pundits and bloggers who doubt or do not believe in anthropogenic global warming at all.

Samantha Burns has even started an on-line petition to campaign against the Earth Hour. Though she has not substantially explained why she is against it, she’s against it anyways. And some bloggers have supported her as well. More on this side of the Earth Hour movement on a later a follow-up post. I myself has a few thoughts about the methodology of the Earth Hour and will be sharing them until then.

For now, what’s important is that there’s a movement to do something to save the planet and address our worsening environmental situation.

The Four-eyed Journal » Earth Hour

More than beyond the hour, how about beyond Earth Hour itself?

Join the Earth Hour 2008

Will you join?