Will You Observe Earth Hour?
Earth Hour will take place this year on Saturday, March 29 at 8 pm (your local time).
What does World Wildlife Fund want you to do during Earth Hour? Well, turn off your lights! The rest is up to you. People in six continents will be in the dark with you.
Here are some suggestions on what to do during this hour in the dark:
-Think about how to implement some of the ideas from Earth Hour: More than Just an Hour.
-Give up a disposable product you currently use. (Ideas: Replace paper napkins with cloth. Use a gold filter instead of paper coffee filters. Use a real cup instead of disposable ones in the bathroom. Stop buying bottled water.)
-Consider living closer to where you work.
-Make some new green goals.
-Commit to always taking your own bags to the store.
-Think about how you can buy products with less packaging.
-Decide to start buying at least five organic products each month at the grocery store.
Inspire others now by commenting on this post. Tell us how you are going to observe Earth Hour 2008.
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POSTED IN: Change the World, Goals, Save Energy
8 opinions for Will You Observe Earth Hour?
Jennifer
Mar 27, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I won’t be observing earth hour. I hate band aid solutions.
MamaBird
Mar 27, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I love band aids and so do my kids! ;) Just kidding, I think this will be a nice teaching moment for my 4 year old so we are going to celebrate an hour earlier and will hope that it’s dark enough to make an impression on her when we light our (soy) candles.
Jennifer
Mar 27, 2008 at 2:16 pm
You make a good point about it being a decent learning opportunity for kids. I’m still not participating - but your comment does make the event seem a little more worthwhile.
MamaBird
Mar 27, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Kids notwithstanding, I read the Earth Hour FAQs just last night (the page is not loading at the moment or I’d look it up for you) and they concede that the coal fired electricity plants already are supplying the grid with power so it doesn’t actually save energy to turn the lights off all at once?! So, possibly nice symbolic gesture for the small ones, but agreed that it’s not a dark green earth shaking move.
Jennifer
Mar 27, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I think that my issue with events like this and even things like Earth Day is that it creates a “being green is a novelty” sort of feeling. Like yahoo! Let’s be green today! Instead of making green more an every day reality it makes it a “holiday” if that makes sense.
On the other hand, I was discussing this with Peggy, and I also think that days like ED can be good in that if one person decides that this is the day they change, it’s worthwhile. It’s a tough call for me. I go back and fourth. Do we call green out and make it special or make it how we simply live. Egad.
Peggy
Mar 27, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I think events like Earth Day were necessary back in the day. Now the media covers environmental issues regularly and environmentalists don’t have to fight quite as much as they used to in order to get attention. Some might disagree with me on that, but I see environmental stories every day on mainstream news outlets.
Still, we have a long way to go and I think it doesn’t hurt to raise awareness on a national or international level as much as possible.
Mamabird, I think the lights off thing is symbolic. Sort of like lighting a candle maybe.
Dim The Lights For Earth Hour
Mar 28, 2008 at 4:55 pm
[…] Find more ideas for Earth Hour activities at Tree Hugging Family. […]
Juls
Mar 29, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I think it takes ‘holidays’ such as these to make people take notice, and to lead to bigger and better solutions instead of just lights out once a year. It is also good for children to be exposed (way to go, Mamabird!) because their generation will grow up with a better understanding of the need to conserve and invest in alternate energy sources.
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