4 Things You Can Do for Earth Hour

03/27/09  Print This Post Print This Post    5 Comments   Popular   Written by Julie Schwietert
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What are you doing at 8:30 tonight?

If you’re like millions of other people around the world, you’re planning on turning out your lights for an hour.

Photo: makelessnoise

Tonight is the third year celebrating Earth Hour, a global climate change awareness project started in Sydney. More than two million homes and businesses turned off their lights for the first Earth Hour; last year, more than 50 million people around the world did the same.

This year, the organizers are aiming to have 1 billion people turn off their lights between 8:30 and 9:30 PM. Major landmarks, including New York City’s Empire State Building, will also turn off their lights.

Maybe the idea of turning off your lights for an hour leaves you wondering what you’ll do with this prime time part of Saturday night.

If that’s the case, here are 4 ideas about how you can spend your Saturday night–with the lights out.

1. Throw a candlelight cocktail party.

Invite some friends over for a last minute get-together (and encourage them to turn their lights off, too). Fire up the candles and dig out the old cocktail shaker. Need some cocktail recipes? Check this list of our refreshing world favorites and stock up before lights out.

2. Get out your guitar.

You’ve been meaning to strum some chords for a while, but you never seem to find time to get around to playing. Pull out the guitar–or whatever instrument you might play–and head to your apartment, house, or hostel stoop. Maybe you’ll meet some neighbors. Maybe they’ll even play along.

3. Go for an evening walk.

In some parts of the world, it’s still light outside at 8:30. But even if it’s not, why not take a walk? The weather’s mild in most places (except the Western US, where you may be without lights anyway due to massive spring snowstorms). You may even want to dust off that pocket astronomy guide and reacquaint yourself with the stars.

4. Share stories.

We spend so many of our days disconnected from one another–even from the people we live with. Take this hour to catch up… you never know where it may lead; you may just want to keep the lights out a little bit longer.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

While taking an hour out for the Earth is important, it’s not likely to make a big difference. You might want to use Earth Hour to think about other ways you can reduce your reliance upon power. Unplug unused appliances. Disconnect from the computer. Start learning more about the products you buy and the impact they have on the environment.


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About the Author

Matador ID: collazo

Julie Schwietert is the managing editor of Matador Network. She contributed a chapter to the recently published book, The Voluntary Traveler, and is currently working on five features for Fodor's Puerto Rico, 6th Edition.

5 Comments... join the discussion!

  • Hugging the Coast Food Blog replied on March 28, 2009

    Don’t forget (by candlelight or using lanterns, of course):

    Play a board game or cards and/or take turns reading aloud to each other (like the characters in Jane Austen do).

    (Report comment)

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  • Carlo replied on March 28, 2009

    Our Earth Hour was last night (Melbourne) and we chilled with some friends and had the candles going. Through the window we had views of the dark city (although, it could have been darker). Sad to read in the paper today that only one third of businesses this year committed to Earth Hour than last year (2500 or so compared to 7000+ last year).

    It’s partly being blamed on lack of publicity, which is quite true as it was relatively quiet leading up. One of our friends couldn’t wrap his head around it, couldn’t understand why it was being done, an attitude that is summed up by this line from a local businessman in today’s paper:

    “People do it for an hour and then don’t change their behaviour for the rest of the time. They think they’re going to change the world by turning off for one hour.”

    The exercise isn’t to “change the world” in that hour. It’s simply to raise awareness, and display that yes, there is something you can do about climate change!

    Have fun turning off and unplugging! :) You just might like it…

    (Report comment)

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  • Nicole5 replied on October 25, 2009

    i always participate whenver there is an Earth Hour event. it is a good thing that the World Wildlife Fund organized an event like this.

    (Report comment)

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  • Andrea replied on August 12, 2010

    Thanks so much for posting a lot of this great information! I am looking forward to reading more posts.

    (Report comment)

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