ACCOUNTING FOR EARTH HOUR: non-environmental effects
Our household participated in Earth Hour, 29 March. The family had dinner by candlelight and it turned out to be a very pleasant family bonding experience (even with the temperature at higher than 30, with summer at full blast here in the
Without cable tv and the other individual preoccupations that electricity can provide, we spent the time swapping stories & jokes and digging up family legends. The children had shrieking fun playing hide & seek in the dark. Some households on our street were out in their front yards chatting with their neighbors (not a usual occurrence).
Even if Earth Hour in the Philippines will not have as encouraging an impact as in Australia (Worldwide Fund reported a 10.2% drop in energy consumption during Earth Hour in Sydney last year, with 2.2 million people and 2,100 business cooperating), the positive effect on family & community relations is enough to encourage participating again next year or instituting a neighborhood tradition (perhaps one hour during the Christmas season when there is a spike in energy consumption with all the Christmas lights & décor and the weather not so warm?).
Eric Eggertson has a different view in Common Sense PR at http://www.commonsensepr.com/2008/03/29/earth-hour-survival-guide/.
Images from Microsoft Clipart
Earth Hour is idiotic… and dangerous. By stated facts, dividing down Australia’s gross national product, if every city in Australia were to participate in Earth Hour it would cost an estimated $50,000,000.00 in lost productivity, even at night. That is the salary of 1000 jobs for an entire year! All to stave off how much pollution exactly?
Enough to fill one medium sized thimble. That’s right.
That is the consequence of Gunpoint Environmentalism: Poverty.
who cares about cost its the cost of what will happen if humans keep doing what there doin wow 1000 people lost there jobs wat about when half the worlds population dies then what u gonna say, im not saying earth hour is good just it might put some news into people heads to stop using so much energy and to think of whats to come 20 to 200 years down the road with the climate change