The time has come once again for Earth Hour which will take place tomorrow evening at 8PM local time. Earth Hour is the highly regarded and very fashionable brain child of the World Wildlife Fund and the Sydney Morning Herald. Its stated goal is to raise awareness of climate change by encouraging people to turn off all non-essential lights for one hour on the last Saturday of every March.
The event started a mere two years ago and has already gained significant traction around the globe, with over 36 million participants in the event last year. Tomorrow lights will dim all around the globe with some of the world’s most iconic landmarks getting involved in going dark.
All of this has led me to question, what is Earth Hour, what are its impacts, and why should I care? Now I’m all for protecting the environment, reduce and reuse, and all of that. What I can’t say is that I’m a big fan of grandiose symbolic gestures.
I can see why raising awareness can be good. But are candles really better for the environment than light-bulbs? I read an interesting blog post earlier today that said if you wanted to replace a 40-watt bulb with candles (500 Candles) you would end up emitting ten times the C02. Of course no one will be burning that many candles tomorrow night but even if you end up only using a few candles during Earth Hour you will be emitting more emissions than you would have from using one light-bulb for one hour.
(Now obviously there are ways to mitigate your candles’ environmental impact such as using natural candles, or you could just not use any candles. But if I wanted to get into the details I would have things like sources and facts.)
I think the lesson is that if you think reading by candlelight for one hour absolves you from any sort of responsibility, you would be wrong. And to remember to take Earth Hour for what it is. Something only beneficial if you remember to apply its core values of reducing your energy consumption more often than one hour a year.
