Sunday 30 March 2008

Earth Hour

By now, everyone's heard of Earth Hour, when tens hundreds of thousands of people around the world turned their lights off between 8pm and 9pm on Saturday evening, in an attempt to raise awareness of the world's dwindling energy resources, and the necessity to use energy wisely.

Toronto was one of the particpating cities. Click here to see a special Toronto Star report on the festivities.

More than 10,000 people listened to Nelly Furtado sing her heart out in the semi-darkness at a free outdoor concert in Nathan Phillips Square.

Me? I had been to a Scottish Country Dance workshop all day, dancing from 9am till 4:30pm. My feet were hurting. I didn't want to go anywhere.

I lit the candles and turned the lights out at 8pm. Outside, the houses across the road were dark. The Space Cadet claimed the sofa, and I settled into a comfy chair to enjoy the candlelight and the quiet.
I woke up at midnight.
Earth Hour was history..... and I slept right through it!

28 comments:

  1. Now I have heard of Earth Hour, but no one around here participated. Gee, I think it's a great idea though. I am trying to turn off lights a lot more.

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  2. I heard about it too, but i don't think the people here at the motel would of enjoyed me turning off the lights.LOL
    Well sounds like you got some well needed sleep then. Where you able to go back to sleep?

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  3. I really appreciated this “Earth Hour” event. You are right that not so many people were informed about it here in Toronto but it is still amazing that people all around the world knew about that and turned the light off at 8pm. I think that green awareness is increasing in past years. As a realtor I have noticed this also in the real estate market in Toronto. Our customers are still more interested in Green lifestyle. They prefer houses built with this strategy. I have also prepared some articles about Green lifestyle and I think it is useful to read them through on my webpage Toronto realtor .

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  4. A bit of Dashing White Sergeant then? Strip the Willow? We have to know how to do this stuff up here. The skill is called into use more than one would think!

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  5. We were bad. Truth is that I vaguely recalled hearing about it but had no idea when it was to be. We had just begun watching a movie last night when the neighbour kids came by to tell us "lights off!" We continued with the movie. :/

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  6. Hi, I'm afraid I've never heard of this, but it would have been next to impossible for us with all my oxygen equipment.

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  7. We knew about it, but forgot that it was happening; I hope there is another effort for one.

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  8. I thought that Earth Hour was not well advertised, so that in Oliver, here no one participated and everything was as bright as ever.
    But we need more than an hour, we need all the time to make a difference. my hobby is astronomy and I hate light polution caused by bad lighting.

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  9. Here in France we just changed one hour again, as twice every year. No celebration (except some protestations from cows and farmers)!

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  10. Itwas if is was not known about in the UK.. I never heard a mention of it at all.. We did turn our lights out though... because we were out all night. Our friends how ever did not... ;o( and again had never heard of this event.

    Tom

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  11. The lights were out all the way down my street. It was amazing!

    I'm fascinated that people here in the boonies of EG knew abut it but those living in the Big Smoke (Toronto) didn't. Very strang indeed!

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  12. I can't believe I never heard about it. It sounds like a very good idea and probably would have participated if I had known. Thanks for the heads up for next year.

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  13. I saw a news segment on the coordinate darkness/Earth hour effort recently but didn't participate because I forgot about it.

    Now I feel guilty. I need a chocolate chip cookie to sublimate my guilt.

    *Hunting for a chocolate chip cookie in the kitchen*

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  14. Great idea. I've never heard of it before :)

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  15. Sorry its been a long time since I visited your blog!

    Yes, I've moved to UK. Came to Wales for my post-graduate studies (MBA)

    Its lovely here and I'm enjoying every minute of it :-)

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  16. ah, well...i slept through it, too...with the LIGHTS ON. i need to work on staying awake so i can participate in these things.

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  17. Like most people I had heard of it but since we were helping people with their moving we forgot all about it. I wasn't aware of people around here doing anything which is a shame.

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  18. All that dancing! Fair wore you out my dear! You appreciated the candlelight in your own way though.

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  19. Me was working haha, so no lights dimmed at the Hospital.

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  20. What a brilliant idea! I go on some of the American 'fundamentalist' blogsites sometimes and they positively disbelieve in global warming. It makes me shudder to think of it.

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  21. i hadn't heard of earth hour till a couple of days ago - such a great idea.

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  22. If Google had not turned their screen black for Earth Hour I would not have known about it . I had no idea it was such a big event. I do not think it was followed inteh UK. Unless I just had my head in the sand

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  23. We weren't at home during that hour, Ex-S, but I made sure that all the lights were out ahead of time, including the one on the front porch. I hope it all made a difference! I started turning my laptop off every night a year ago and do believe that's one of the things that helps!

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  24. Nope, totally missed it. This is the first I've heard about it. All we seem to get these day is the Australia Channel, and something in Japanese. I would have participated though! Can I do it now? Does that mean I have to turn off my laptop??

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  25. i buy my burlap locally (corner brook, nl). i used to buy it from deanne fitzpatrick in new brunswick (she has a wonderful web site and mail order business). thanks for checking in on my progress...

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  26. Good for you...we were walking the streets of Philly and the lights stayed on....sigh

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  27. Earth Hour? Who did take the iniative to implement this event?

    I remember back in the early 70ies, oil crises, lack of oil etc, we had several "car-free" weekends here in Norway.

    I say: Bring back the rainforests to about 50% of what it oncw were, then we will have natures own CO2 cleaning system besides restitute the worlds larges rivers (clean water we are talking about) and stop eating red beef (the absolutely worst climate enemy. Believe it or not. 1 kg of beef takes 7 kg of grain to produce - plus the land and the metan-gaz from the beasts fart. The climate footprints are so scary, most people would not belive it.

    ok. This is all for this very late night

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