Janet CollinsThinking about lights
March 29th 2009 08:52
While I can’t dispute the merits of the Earth Hour campaign, particularly because of the message it sends out to the masses, for most of the office buildings throughout Sydney or any of the other cities throughout the world, switching off the lights for one hour was hardly any sort of sacrifice. The offices are not used on Saturday nights anyway.
I have often wondered and questioned why all the lights in all the high rise buildings are left on way after everyone has gone home and on the weekends when no-one comes in. The answer to this has never come to me.
Perhaps there is some real logical explanation for these buildings keeping their lights ablaze all the time. The sacrifice for others may have been a little more and this came to me the other day when I read of a hospital going to some sort of green power for that hour just to do the right thing.
A hospital on a Saturday night surely should not be shamed into doing the same. This is a building that needs power the weekend over and within it are the sick and injured. Should they really be pressured to turn off their lights just as we are in our homes or the empty office buildings around the place?
The Earth Hour campaign this years was its third. Quite an innovative idea I think mainly because it gets people thinking about the ease in which we can save on energy. It jeers everyone up to think about the environment and how best we can conserve what we have.
It is another year, though, before these buildings will switch into darkness for one hour…..one hour, over a whole year…..and as I have said before, it is an hour that is pretty unaffected anyway because no one is there to see the difference.
Perhaps Earth Hour can stretch its campaign further. In the first year it was a really good idea to get people thinking but they have to think about the environment in the other 364 days of the year and turn off some of the lights that are on for no purpose at all.
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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also, harking back to the 80s and 90s, i think some companies got into the habit of using a fully lit skyrise building as a status symbol, and a way of advertising their success . . . the more wasteful and extravagent they appear the more people were convinced of their wealth and had confidence in investing in them etc
i wonder if the collective consciousness, with regard to environmental responsibility, will evolve to the point where lighting a vacant building will disgust and deter the public from frequenting the business?
Comment by Janet Collins
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One of the things I hate about this is that the companies skite about doing it. It is hardly an inconvenience of any kind, seeing as no-one is there.
Comment by Janet Collins
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Comment by moonglow
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I can't say as to what good it would do, anyhow.
I always turn my lights off when I'm not using them. I think if people did that much, it would be a lot more effective than having the world go black for an hour.
Comment by Janet Collins
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Comment by samaritan
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I wonder if the earth hour thing is a bit like the green bag thing. Now I love the canvas bags and use them all the time. But I remember reading once that using green bags was like the easy thing that people could do so that they could give themselves a nice pat on the back and go back to their regular ways of ruining the plant with a clearer conscience.
Samaritan
Comment by Wilson Pon
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It's really a very unforgettable moment and I hope to do it again in the upcoming years...
Comment by Janet Collins
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You could be right about the fact that forgetting could make you more conscious in the further of conserving electricity.It's obviously made you feel a little guilty so I am sure you will.
Thanks for dropping in.
Comment by Janet Collins
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What a great thing to do in the dark.
When people switch off their lights from their homes they are actually thinking about doing it. When the lights go off in the offices for one hour when no-one is there, no-one is paying attention and it seems absolutely pointless unless they become more conscious about leaving the lights on after hours anyway.
I am glad you enjoyed the campaign though. Great excuse to drink champagne I say.