Earth Hour 2010!
- (mirrored from my blog)
- Courtesy of SuperForest.org
I just finished participating in Earth Hour by turning off my lights and electrical appliances from 8:30-9:30pm. In case you haven’t heard about Earth Hour before, or are not exactly sure what it entails, here’s some interesting tidbits from the official site:
Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The CN Tower in Toronto, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.
In order to be ready to turn out the lights, I had to rush to finish cooking dinner in time. I then enjoyed a lovely hour of solitude, eating my dinner by candlelight, following by cleaning up the dishes, folding and putting away laundry (don’t worry- the dryer was done it’s cycle before 8:30pm!), and finally 20 minutes of knitting in my comfy chair, all by the light of (many) candles strategically placed throughout my studio apartment for maximum seeing-in-the-dark ability. It was actually quite a rejuvenating and peaceful way to spend a Saturday evening- made me think I should turn out the lights and live by the light of the flame more often!
According to The Globe and Mail, nearly 1 billion people from 4100 cities in over 87 countries participated in Earth Hour in 2009. I hope we beat that number this year!!
What were you doing for Earth Hour? Do you think Earth Hour is a valuable initiative? Comment below!
Check out these sweet photos of Earth Hour celebrations around the world. PS I totally dig this Earth Hour poster, courtesy of SuperForest.org
