March 24, 2011

This Saturday, March 26, is another Earth Hour. More specifically, the 5th one so far. It will be happening from 8:30 to 9:30 pm (local time).

According to this year's facebook event "Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off for one hour to take a stand against climate change."

And, "On Saturday 27 March, Earth Hour 2010 became the biggest Earth Hour ever. A record 128 countries and territories joined the global display of climate action."

Visit the Earth Hour website at www.earthhour.org/beyondthehour - its a really cool site with tons of suggestions on how to take your actions during Earth hour to the next level.

What are you going to do, will you turn off all your lights? What about your  microwave, or the plug that's charging your laptop, will you disconnect those? What about your TV? There are different degrees, but to fully appreciate the one hour, try and turn as much off as possible. Why not have a nice candle-lit night in with someone special, or watch a movie on your laptop (if it's running off of battery power and not plugged in my thought is that this is okay).

McGill University is also participating in Earth Hour. In an e-mail to students, it said that McGill would participate by "by turning off some lights on campus for the weekend, beginning on Friday afternoon."

In addition, and I think this is really neat, "McGill students, faculty and staff are also invited to join our counterparts from Concordia on a flashlight walk up Mount Royal. Meeting point will be at 7:10 p.m. on the lower field of the McGill campus, at the goalposts close to the Roddick Gates. The group is scheduled to arrive at the main lookout on Mount Royal at approximately 8:15 p.m., an incredible opportunity to watch lights across the city being turned off and experience the impact of collective action. Snacks and hot chocolate will be served – participants are asked to bring their own reusable mugs."

This is really cool and even if you aren't in Montreal or don't go to McGill or Concordia, why not do this in your neighbourhood? 

For more information on Earth Hour in Canada see: http://wwf.ca/earthhour

And around the world: http://www.earthhour.org/Homepage.aspx 

Finally, I heard about this a couple years ago but it seems to fit - http://www.blackle.com/ is a black version of google. The point being, that the black screen uses less energy than the white screen of regular google. Pretty nifty!