Turn Out The Lights

I don’t know if the lights went out in your house last Saturday night, but they went out in mine.  My wife had told me about Earth Hour earlier in the week.  I actually forgot about it until around 7:15 p.m. when I happened to be checking my Linkedin account and saw a question posted asking why Google had gone “black” for a period of time.  Conrad Warre posted an answer stating “Google turned black today as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation [effort]”.

    

While Google acknowledges that simply turning their screen black does not actually save any energy, they “believe in doing [their] part to help combat climate change”.  “Further”, their web site states, “we think the ‘lights out’ idea’s individual-centered nature is something that millions of people worldwide can participate in.  In short, we really like it.  So we did something about it.”

    

It started last year when the World Wildlife Fund worked with the city of Sydney, Australia and convinced the Harbour Bridge and Opera House (along with millions of Sydney’s citizens) to go dark for an hour. 

     

Well, we turned out the lights and, to the initial complaints of our children, played board games by candle light. It turned out that everyone had a great time.  I won’t tell you that I’m the most environmentally conscientious person in Chicagoland, but I’m trying.

      

You can visit www.WorldWildlife.org/Climat to find out how you can make a difference throughout the year to fight climate change.

    

Until next time,

    

Dan