Earth Hour

Last night at promptly 8:00 pm EST, we turned off all our lights at home in participation with Earth Hour.

We had all our lights off until 9:00 pm and ate dinner by candle light. It was reminiscent of those "brown out" days during Ramos' time in the Philippines. JR commented that whenever he turned the tap on, he was conscious of how much water he was using because in his mind, no light meant no electricity which in turn meant no water. In the Philippines, we had a water pump at the back of the house which ran with electricity and when there was no electricity, it meant no water for us so we were very careful of how much water was running in the house.

Nelly Furtado, being named as the Canadian ambassador for Earth Hour, performed for free at Nathan Phillips Square last night and I had forgotten all about it. My parents and I were already downtown and had I remembered she was performing, I would have passed by to get a glimpse. I wouldn't have stayed for the entire show though because it was cold outside and I'm not a big fan of being outside when it's below 0 degrees.

My dad and I were watching the Earth Hour coverage on TV and we were kinda disappointed that some of the buildings downtown still had their lights on. I would have loved to see the entire city pitch black for the first time. But they mentioned on TV that some of those establishments/buildings were built during the 50s and some lights don't have separate switches and that turning the main switch off would've turned everything off and some people needed light for business so they couldn't completely turn everything off. Whatever. I would've still preferred it if everyone joined in. What's 1 hour without light?

Anyway, I think everyone should be more conscious of how we are affecting our environment. It's sad that people are only doing something about it now when they should have been taking steps a long time ago. Better late than never I guess?