Common misconceptions about earth hour

I got the impression building up to Earth Hour and during the event that some people seemed to have the wrong idea about what it was all about. It’s a bit late, I know but I’ve had other things on my mind and this wasn’t high on my list of things to do but better late than never I thought.

I noticed using yahoo answer during the lead up to Earth Hour (fighting all the skeptics in the global warming section). That a lot of people seemed to have the wrong idea about what they were meant to do and why.

1. Turning off your light: All that your asked to do on Earth Hour is to turn off all none essential lights. This means most lights, you can watch TV and play your computer. It’s not about going zero emissions for 1 hour. After all, if everyone suddenly turned off everything it would have some nasty effects on the power grid. All that powers got to go somewhere. All we are asked to do for the event is turn off our lights for an hour :). (No Monty burns won’t throw it in a ditch)

2. It’s all pointless 1 hour won’t make a difference: Nope I know it won’t it’s not about saving power so much as razing awareness and educating people. By turning off our lights, we send a message as to how we can save power. Plenty of websites provide information including my own: http://wonx2150.dragonhost.net.au/elbh/. If people turn off their lights for earth hour then the idea is maybe they will do it other nights to and get into been general more power usage friendly. Overall, it won’t make a huge difference although it sends a message. This year more than ever was about sending a message to our leaders that we want a good outcome from this year’s climate meetings in Copenhagen, Denmark.

3. Old people will get hurt without the lights. I heard some kid raise this on YA although I don’t think he cared at all about old people he just wanted to have a go at Earth Hour and disprove global warming. In defense of this I did say NONE ESENTIAL LIGHTS. If you need to turn the light on turn the light on no need to take unnecessary risks. Alternatively, you could just use a candle. I heard a few suggestions of having romantic candle lit dinners that night. Pity my girl friend happens to be on the other side of the planet atm.

Hopefully this clears up a few things and next year we can get even more people involved. They reached their target this year I’m told. So let’s make it even bigger next year. Remember you don’t have to wait for earth hour to make changes to your life :), I’ve made them in my everyday life and I’m happy I’ve done it. I’m always striving for ways to do more. 

PS: my Recycling going well we haven’t got the regular bin emptied for like 3 weeks now as 80% or more of all our rubbish can be recycled. Poor little green general waste bin been replaced by my big yellow and green one :P