By Dan Wilson
Earth Hour is fast approaching. That’s the time of year, once a year when we’re encouraged to turn our lights off for an hour to show how much we love and care about the planet.
Started in 2007 by the World Wildlife Fund, individuals, families and businesses are asked to switch off their lights, TVs and other non-essential appliances at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 27th.
According to the WWF website, hundreds of millions of people took part in last year’s Earth Hour, making it “the world’s largest global climate change initiative.”
To be honest, I haven’t been a big fan of previous Earth Hour events. The idea that the best we can do for THE PLANET THAT GIVES US LIFE is to turn off the lights for one hour is both sad and embarrassing to me.I remember my disappointment and frustration last year – the day after Earth Hour 2009 – when I visited a nearby ATM and noticed that not only my bank, but all the other businesses in the plaza, still had their outside lights on at 9:00 o’clock in the morning.
Adding to my frustration is the fact that it’s been 40 years since the very first Earth Day celebrations took place to raise awareness of the impact we have on Mother Earth and how we can be more eco-friendly; yet not a day goes by that I don’t witness some form of environmental degradation and disrespect.
Empty cars left running at the post office or convenience store; huge line-ups at coffee shop or fast food outlet drive thru’s; people still drinking water from plastic bottles, using paper and Styrofoam coffee cups and putting their groceries in plastic bags. And don’t get me started on the litter!
At work I’m constantly fishing paper out of the garbage cans even though we have a recycling program, and every day I watch co-workers spend their coffee breaks in their vehicles with the engines running.
Here in St. David’s where I live, housing developments over the last few years have changed the landscape so much that I hardly recognize it anymore, and when I ride my bike to work, my lungs and nasal cavities are coated with pesticides carried by the wind from neighbouring vineyards and orchards.
Heavy sigh …
But perhaps this year’s Earth Hour will be different. According to Tara Wood, a spokesperson for the WWF, the theme for this year’s Earth Hour is to think about the other twenty-three. “We’re really trying to encourage individual action to make every hour Earth Hour.”
Unfortunately, there’s no information or suggestions that I could find on the Earth Hour website, www.earthhour.org about just what exactly those individual actions might be, so here are a few ideas of my own to get you started.
1. Recycle, reduce and reuse whenever and wherever you can!
2. Carpool, use public transportation or better yet, ride your bike as often as possible.
3. Turn off the lights and turn down your heat when you’re not home. And turn off your computer, TV or stereo when you’re not using them.
4. Turn off the lights at work too if there’s nobody in the room. This includes the bathroom! You turn them off at home, so why leave them on at work?
5. Buy yourself a reusable travel mug and water receptacle (they’re only $5 to $10) instead of using paper, Styrofoam and plastic containers all the time.
6. Turn your car off when you go to the bank, post office or variety store. Trust me, you won’t freeze to death.
7. Never, ever, ever use the drive thru.
8. Stop eating meat. It’s the worst thing for the environment AND the animals.
9. Don’t litter (that includes cigarette butts). If you can’t stop flicking your butt on the ground, then just quit smoking altogether (your lungs will thank you).
10. Keep reading Niagara At Large, knowing that not one tree was killed to provide you with valuable, cutting edge and insightful up-to-the-minute local news and commentary!
We really need to take better care of our home. After all, it’s the only one we have and there’s nothing quite like it anywhere else. We can’t simply go out and buy a new planet when we break this one. So let’s all do our part to make every hour Earth Hour. Sure I’m still skeptical, but I’m full of hope as well.
(Dan Wilson is a Niagara resident and longtime advocate for animal welfare and environmental protection.)
(click www.niagaraatlarge for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)
Niagara At Large 
Great post Dan.
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Kudos to Dan Wilson for an excellent piece on Earth Hour. While I share his feelings of disappointment with the slow pace of change in environmental awareness, I’m also encouraged by the growing acceptance of the notion that our own behaviour affects the future of our planet. I’m finding that even those who complain about recycling nevertheless put their blue, grey and green bins out on the appropriate day.
I’d like to make a small change to one suggestion Dan has made: the correct order is REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. It is too easy to keep mindlessly consuming over-packaged goods, consoling ourselves that Niagara Recycling will take away the evidence. Recycling is very expensive, and much of what is taken away ends up in landfill, particularly when the market for rec
So let’s heed Dan’s wise words and take a little time — perhaps during Earth Hour? — to thing about what we consume, and how much of it is truly necessary.
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I have tried to contribute as much as possible to conservation by hanging clothes outside, putting netting on my upstairs windows to protect birds, low consumption appliances, power off on appliances when not in use and so on but it has been very frustrating when I turn off my lights every year for earth hour to see I’m the only one on the street to do so. The town and businesses in Fort Erie don’t seem to take any notice or publicize it either. With my interest in astronomy, I also wish people would use motion sensor and night sky friendly lights outdoors (including new fixtures installed by the town when replacements are necessary) so we can actually appreciate the night sky. I remember during the blackout a few years back that people in New York were calling the radio and TV stations in a panic wondering if the lights in the sky had something to do with it. The lights were the stars – how pathetic. Night illumination also effects the circadian rhythms of both animals and humans negatively. It wastes energy because most of the light is dispersed upward where it is of no use.
Maybe this year people will be able to at least bring themselves to make this small token gesture.
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