An Hour's Savings

It was still light, but too cool and wet to enjoy being outside watching the night fall. So we played musical instruments and backgammon by candlelight on Saturday, March 29, 2008. Together with millions of people around the world, we turned out our lights for one hour—Earth Hour—from 8 to 9 p.m. While the lights were out, the Earth Hour group encouraged people to replace their energy-wasting light bulbs with new, energy-saving ones, and think about saving energy at home, in their neighborhood and city, and at their workplace.

Some speculated that the action would not make a noticeable effect. However, in Earth Hour Chicago, the city and Northern Illinois reduced their electricity consumption by 7 percent (or 818 megawatt hours)! That's equal to eliminating 1.3 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions; saving 72,000 gallons of gasoline; planting 158 acres of trees; or taking more than 1 million cars off the road for an hour (courtesy of ComEd). That's amazing; and really encouraging, that this small effort can make such an impact.

The big cities of New York, San Francisco, and more were also participants. The lights went out in Georgia, including 400 buildings in Atlanta that participated (the photos at left were taken before and during Earth Hour). Valdosta also participated in a big way, saving 4 percent of their usage, and they plan to make it 10 percent next year! We will join in this effort for next year also (let's make the Carolinas stand out on their map). But the next step is to reduce our energy usage every day—to make Earth Hour the beginning, not the end—and to help others find ways to join in.