Reiki for Earth Hour
Earth Hour is an international event organized by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), and held each year on the last Saturday of March, which asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.
The main goal of Earth Hour is to create awareness around climate change issues and "to express that individual action on a mass scale can help change our planet for the better" and not to marginally reduce energy consumption during that specific hour.
Earth Hour 2007
Earth Hour was held for the first time in Sydney, Australia on March 31, 2007 at 7:30 pm, local time. The event was conceived by WWF Greenwich CT and the Sydney Morning Herald. Approximately 2.2 million residents and 2100 companies of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights.
According to figures from EnergyAustralia, a local utility, mains electricity consumption for the 2007 event in Sydney was 2% lower during the Hour than would be expected given the time, weather conditions and past four years’ consumption patterns. The Herald Sun equated this with "taking 48,613 cars off the road for 1 hour".
Earth Hour 2008
Following Sydney’s lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event in 2008. Earth Hour 2008 was held internationally on 29 March 2008 from 8 pm to 9 pm, local time, marking the first anniversary of the event. With 35 countries around the world participating as official flagship cities and over 400 cities also supporting, Earth Hour 2008 was celebrated on all seven continents.
Iconic landmarks all around the world turned off their non-essential lighting for Earth Hour which included the Empire State Building (New York City), Sears Tower (Chicago), Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco), Bank of America Plaza (Atlanta), Sydney Opera House (Sydney, Australia), Table Mountain (Cape Town, South Africa), Wat Arun Buddhist Temple (Bangkok, Thailand), the Colosseum (Rome, Italy), Royal Castle (Stockholm, Sweden), London’s City Hall (United Kingdom), Space Needle (Seattle, USA), the CN Tower (Toronto, Canada), SM Mall of Asia, SM Science Discovery Center (Manila, Philippines), Suva (Fiji), Nidaros Cathedral (Trondheim, Norway) and The Royal Liver Building (Liverpool, England).
Before 2008, San Francisco had been running a Lights Out program of their own, that occurred in October. In 2008, Earth Hour became an international event and San Francisco was asked to be a partner city in this event. Rather than have a competing event, San Francisco has supported the international Earth Hour event and all Lights Out efforts have moved to March 29, to align with Australia’s Earth Hour.
In Canada, the best result was from Toronto, where 900 megawatt-hours of electricity, or 8.7% was saved if measured against a typical March Saturday night. The worst result was from Calgary. The city’s power consumption actually went up 3.6% at the hour’s peak electricity demand. In Calgary, however, where weather plays a large role in power consumption, the city experienced weather 12°C colder than the previous Saturday’s recorded temperature.
According to a Zogby International online survey 36 million people participated in Earth Hour 2008. The survey also showed there was a 4 percentage point increase in awareness of environmental issues such as climate change, directly after the event.
Earth Hour 2009
Earth Hour is taking place on Saturday, March 28, 2009 from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, local time.
The Earth Hour 2009 is taking place in the context of the pivotal 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The event aims to have 1 billion "votes" in over 80 countries and 4000 supporting cities.
If you care, be one of them. Vote Earth!
If you are a Reiki Practitioners, you can do more than just turn off the lights and light a candle. You can use that hour to give Reiki to Mother Earth. You can help to make it a better place for all of us.
The official website for the event, earthhour.org, received last year over 6.7 million unique visitors in the week leading up to Earth Hour. Other websites, like Google, YouTube and Flickr, took part in the event.
Reiki-Do participates in this event, at Montreal/Toronto (GMT -05 EST – Eastern Time US & Canada) and Calgary (GMT -07 MT – Mountain Time US & Canada) local times. We invite all our readers to join us in this spiritual event. Many thanks to all of you who will choose to do it.
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Please, share with us your “bright ideas” for the “dark hour”.
March 29th, 2009 at 20:00
Aftermath:
Earth Hour 2009 was joined by 88 countries and more than 4,000 cities, which represents more than double of the participation in Earth Hour 2008.
Among the participants was, for the first time, the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
In Canada, the province of Ontario, outside of Toronto, notised a decrease of 6% of electricity while Toronto recorded a decrease of 15.1% (nearly doubled from the previous year) as many businesses darkened, including the landmark CN Tower.
March 30th, 2009 at 09:32
The significant reduction of the electricity consumption during the Earth Hour 2009
proves that even small actions like turning off your lights can make a huge difference in reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change.
With such broad participation, the event sent a strong message for real action on climate change.
Together, we are making a difference!
March 31st, 2009 at 04:20
Enjoyed your post about Earth Hour and wanted to share a video that my group “YERT” created about the event:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg86XBQ5e5Q .
YERT stands for “Your Environmental Road Trip” and we descended on the capitol last year to see what was going on for the big day. And, well… we’ll let the video sum it up. 😉
Peace,
Mark
April 1st, 2009 at 13:09
This worries me a little: sure, we’ll reduce our energy consumption for an hour, but what happens nine months later, when the world population surges as a result of, well, people doing what they typically do when it’s dark and there’s not much else going on…?
April 2nd, 2009 at 07:00
Hmmm… good point. Maybe there should be a follow-up event … “Birth Day”.
April 4th, 2009 at 12:22
Small actions with big impact on the environment:
1. Smart shopping
– Buy what you need, not what you want
– Consider renting and borrowing things that are seldom needed
– Buy used items
2. Energy savers
– Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs
– Favor local lighting to general lighting
– Use dimmers and turn off lights when you leave a room
3. Heating and cooling
– For summer air conditioning, set your thermostat to 23oC -24oC
– For winter heating, set your thermostat to 20oC -21oC
– Install programmable thermostats
– Weatherstrip windows and doors
4. Transportation
– Walk, cycle, car pool and use public transportation
– When driving, reduce idling and maintain correct tire pressure
– Vacation, travel and work as close to home as possible
5. Food Choices
– Choose organic foods that are in season,
– Support local food producers
– Consume less meat
6. Bathroom Basics
– Take short showers instead of baths
– Use warm water at 37oC – 40oC
– Use aerators on faucets and shower heads
– Close water taps while brushing your teeth or shaving
7. Washing and Drying
– Wash full loads of clothes in cold water
– Hang clothes to air dry
8. Cleaning
– Choose natural, non-toxic cleaning products
– Make simple, natural cleaners with ingredients like vinegar, baking soda and water
9. Smart Discarding
– Reuse, recondition or recycle items
– Donate items before throwing them into the trash
– Take harmful materials like chemicals, batteries, electronics, etc. to local hazardous waste depots or recyclers
This actions will not only grately impact the environment, but they will also reduce your cost of living.
April 6th, 2009 at 07:50
Every decision has opportunity costs. It’s one thing to be in favor of energy conservation, but the issue is less straight-forward when you consider what people have to give up: Should shops, restaurants & bars have to close and tell employees not to come in? Should TV stations lose profits from ads aired during Earth Hours? It’s understood that Earth Hour is just meant to symbolize the choice we have in energy utilization, but in complying with it, it also represents the opportunities that we’re giving up by spending less energy as well.
I would also be interested in how this affects power supply, as whole cities turn back on their lights at the same time when it’s over.
April 7th, 2009 at 02:08
As I already specified, the initiators of this event ask households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. This event is not intended to bring significant direct energy savings, but to have a long term effect by bringing this topic into the public consciousness. It is only a warning that Earth resources are limited and we humans have to use them wisely.
Restaurants do not need to close or send employees home during the Earth Hour, but they could reduce the general lighting and put some candles or small lamps on the tables. I am sure that this will not reduce their profits, but even more, if properly advertised, this could increase the number of people willing to spend the Earth Hour in a romantic ambiance.
All these types of worries have solutions. Only if people could see them.
April 10th, 2009 at 19:49
Ok, it’s nice when people think a bit more about the power consumption and I guess such a PR Stunt as the Earth Hours could bring some people to think about if all their devices are really needed and to be running all the time and stuff.
BUT switching of all power consuming devices at the same time can bring BIG troubles to a power grid (if really a lot of people would do that…). Not even less problematic the point of time when everybody is switching back on the stuff after an hour…
In a worst case scenario this could lead to a black out, and also bringing up a shut down power plant again would cost some energy, which wouldn’t be needed otherwise — a lot of energy savings would be destroyed by that.
On the other hand I am really not frightened of this days and hours — there aren’t enough participants in such an event anyways…
April 12th, 2009 at 04:21
I’m not so worried about the generators, because electric companies are aware of Earth-Hours and are standing by to shut off fast-response sources such as gas turbines.
However, please consider helping the earth by reading in the light of a compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL), and here’s why:
– Paraffin wax candle would burn through 10 grams of paraffin in one hour, for 42 kJ/g (kilo Joules per gram), costing 420 kJ of fossil energy per one reading hour.
– The CFL will burn 20 Watts (Jouls per second) for 3600 seconds, costing only 72 kJ, mostly fossil too.
CFLs are *better* to Earth than candles, due to their low heat output conversion of energy to light is more efficient than in a flame.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:44
On June 5, was launched on YouTube the movie Home by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Here is his message:
We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, to avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth?s climate. The stakes are high for us and our children. We have no time to lose. I have been nurturing this film for more than fifteen years. What I saw and learnt as I flew over the Earth has changed me forever. Today I want to share what I have experienced throughout these journeys. I believe that we have the collective wisdom to find a solution.
The film will be aired for free on 5 June – World Environment Day – on the internet, on TV and in thousands of movie theatres around the world.
I would like this movie to become your movie. Share it and act!
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
You can watch the movie at:
http://www.youtube.com/homeproject