Posts made in March 29th, 2009

Earth Hour? Puh-leeze

Posted by Michelle on Mar 29, 2009 in Life | 0 comments

So yesterday was the much touted Earth Hour which, as I understand it, everyone around the Earth was asked to turn off their lights for one full hour.

Seriously?

It’s not that I don’t care about the Earth. I do. While I wouldn’t call myself an eco-warrior, buying everything organic and eschewing mainstreaming living on the grid, I think we do our part. We don’t buy many paper products like paper towels and diapers, choosing to use dishcloths and cloth diapers. We never turn on a light that isn’t being used. Most things are turned off at the power strip when not in use. Our appliances are Energy Star rated, we have low flow toilets, we don’t use our dishwasher more than twice a week and then only in the middle of the night, etc.  We don’t do this because we’re tree huggers.  In our family, we simply don’t have the money to waste electricity or resources and we live a generally green life every day out of necessity.

Honestly, I’m kind of amazed that people have to be asked to turn off their lights at all.  Are there actually people who leave lights on when no one is using them? I mean, seriously? On any given night, I can assure you that this house is dark, with most every light shut off except for the rooms that people are actually occupying. And that would be two rooms at the most, usually only one room because The Hubster ™ can game just as well in the dark, thank you. (Prolly not so good for the eyes but there you go.)

I look at Earth Hour the way I look at Valentine’s Day — a meaningless, corporate ploy a bringing people together under false pretenses to assuage mainstream guilt. Except instead of flowers and chocolates to declare one’s love on Valentine’s Day, everyone starts crowing about how they turned their lights off for a flipping hour. Don’t give the Earth an hour or even a day. Be contentinous of how you use the Earth’s resources every day of your life. Is that so hard?

So when Earth Hour hit last night, I was happily sitting on the couch, watching DVDs with The Hubster ™ and The Litle Empress. The lights were off everywhere but the family room. Earth Hour? Bite me, it was Family Hour for us.