Earth Hour

On March 27th, everyone in the world, ideally, was asked to shut off non-essential power for an hour. The idea was to remind us to be careful how we use limited resources, not just for the hour of course, but all year round. The province of Ontario reported a 10% decrease in electricity use during that hour. The city of Calgary reported a 0.5% decrease, which was an improvement over its 2% increase reported last year.
It’s hard to find fault with conserving limited resources. But the rhetoric about it does not seem to be reflected in action by those who claim to support it. When consumers a couple years ago actually made a serious effort to only buy things they needed, those same voices promoting Earth Hour panicked, demanding that the state borrow more money to entice people to buy just to keep the economy going. Our economy is dependent on consumers throwing away stuff that is still serviceable, buying stuff which we don’t need and won’t even make us any happier, eating and drinking far more than is healthy for us, and busily traveling to and fro in a flurry of activity. Suzuki solemnly endorses switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, but fails to comment on resources required to make them, that they will be left on longer, that they do not provide the same light, do not work well in cold temperatures, and that we would accomplish more by simply turning off lights, and heat, and cooling, and vehicles that are not serving any purpose. Witnessing a daily morning parade of idling vehicles leading up to a Tim Horton’s drive through a few years ago left an indelible shock in my memory.
It wasn’t that many years ago that most businesses closed at least one day a week. Somehow we managed to obtain our groceries, and consumer goods, spend a bit more time with friends and family, take time to acknowledge the One who created all this good stuff, and still build one of the most prosperous civilizations in the history of the world. We gave the earth a rest one day a week, as well as every night. Well, now we need to shop or work or go out for entertainment 24/7. Not quite sure how this will make us all better off, but at least there is a token hour out of the 8766 per year.
This is like going to church once a year to feel good about being a little bit religious. But it is more than that. Listening to comments on the radio about what people did during earth hour, there were ideas like just being with some friends, or having a glass of wine by candlelight. And I thought, this is a religious ceremony, a time to do our homage to Mother Earth. It does have a much more palatable flavor than the grim content of the Christian holy week. As Easter was adapted from paganism to Christianity, perhaps it has almost come full circle. –philw