Earth Hour - Missed It? Plan for March 29, 2009

This is a picture of Sydney, Australia during Earth Hour 2008. This past Saturday in cities and towns around the world people turned off their lights for one hour. The global warming awareness event was sponsored by WWF, the world wildlife fund.

At 8pm our local time my husband threw the breaker switch on our house and we went off-grid for Earth Hour. At first my son complained about missing the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards and sulked on the couch. My youngest jumped up and down with excitement over sitting in the dark in the backyard. He thought it would be fun.

After a heated and hilarious debate about the amount of carbon emissions it would create we decided start a small fire in our chimenea and convinced our son to come outside and enjoy the fire. It turned out to be a relaxing hour spent talking and joking. We ate dinner by firelight and enjoyed each others undivided attention.

I don't know how much our effort helped to stem the tide of global warming. I'm sure it was nothing more than a drop in the bucket but that's okay. It gave us a reason to slow down. As I watched the sparks from the fire mingle with the starry sky, I said a little prayer that our children will have a healthy world to grow old in.

I wouldn't mind doing a power-free hour like this more often. I wonder what would happen if my whole neighborhood went off-grid for an hour or my entire community. Not only would we make a noticeable dip at the power plant but we might all be happier after an hour spent with the people we love.