An Hour a Day Keeps the Melting Away, Supposedly

As we've all heard, today is Earth Hour day, where we all shut down our non-essential lights for an hour to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate change.

Of course, at 8:30 PM tonight, I will promptly turn off all the lights in my puny dorm room. With a room that small, there is no non-essential light.

But for the people in houses, I hear that many are planning to sit out the hour in total darkness. Way to go, guys! I expect that a lot of people will do the same, especially with all the hype and excitement I saw in twitter earlier today. It's always good to know that my friends back home are trying to be somewhat environmentally friendly, I think it's something they do to make up for the horrendous energy consumption every christmas. (Honestly, maybe they should do earth hour in the middle of christmas season to cut back on all that energy wasted on those giant, shiny Santa on the front yard)

Earth Hour began in 2007, when 2.2 residents in Sydney turned off non-essential lights for an hour. According to the statistics released by EnergyAustralia, the electricity consumption in Sydney for that one hour was 10.2% lower. The newspaper The Herald Sun compared this to taking around 43,000 cars off the road for an hour. Sound good for my lungs.

Of course, in the past few years, Earth Hour has grown to be a global movement. Last year, it was estimated that 1.8 billion people participated. This year, the numbers are expected to still grow. And not only from individuals, many renowned TV channels have been known to suspend broadcast during Earth Hour, encouraging people to turn off more of their utilities. Famous landmarks also turn off their lights for Earth Hour.

Earth Hour launched the campaign I Will If You Will this year. They described it in their website as a "simple promise and a challenge" where you can "dare anyone (your Facebook friends, co-workers, celebrity crushes) to accept your challenge and help protect the Earth or accept the challenge of someone else." You accept a challenge in exchange for people's participation in another program, if I'm not mistaken. The stuff people have promised to do sounds pretty cheeky, like doing the polar bear swim (what the hell is that?). My favorite has to be the one where some guy promises a 2.5% reduction in global CO2 emission if all countries join the UN En.Lighten initiative. Smart man.

Either way, Earth Hour is probably one of the bandwagons everyone actually should jump on. Here's the pledge, which everyone should totally sign.

We'll take an hour of darkness for the promise of a brighter sky.