★ My Thoughts on Earth Hour

Earth Hour is a great idea! I think the notion that we can turn off the lights for one hour on a global level is pretty impossible but if 5% of the world does it, the impact will be significant. Strangely enough, I’m against Earth Hour. Yes this green, charitable San Franciscan thinks it’s stupid. A Good idea that should be executed differently. I’d like to offer up a little history about my move to San Francisco.

I made the move to San Francisco for many reasons but one of the reasons was that I thought I could be a little more green by living in a city. It sounds odd but there are some very clear benefits.

1. I ride my bicycle everywhere. I drive a car 30 minutes or less twice a month to get groceries. This makes a huge impact.
2. I ride public transit nearly everywhere that’s too far to bike (10 miles+)
3. I live in a studio apartment that has 3 light bulbs, a small stove and a space heater. Powerbills in Florida were $150 a month for my house. Now I pay $37.
4. I switched to a water conserving toilet and water conserving shower head in my studio apartment.
5. I switched to LED displays in my laptops and desktops at my house. LED uses less electricity.
6. I started buying local and organic foods because foods shipped from all over use more fuel.
7. I started wearing shirts 2 or 3 days in a row to conserve on washing and now I do 1 load of laundry a week.
8. I started drinking tap water and reducing the amount of plastics I use.
9. Laura and I recycle EVERYTHING! We have bins for paper, plastic and aluminum / tin. The same goes for work as well. Everything is recycled.
10. I never leave my computer, lights or electronics powered on when I leave to go somewhere.
11. I’m a member of city car share where you can rent a Prius (hybrid) for errands or grocery store runs. I use this sparingly but it’s a shared car program so my environmental impact is low.
12. When i fly i always organize flight options by “less mileage” than “less time” or “less $$$” By flying less miles, I’m helping Co2 output a little bit but not a lot.
13. I threw away my printer and started doing everything paperless. I haven’t printed anything out unless I absolutely have to in a year. no ink, no paper.
14. I switched to low power light bulbs that last longer but use a lot less energy than normal bulbs.

This is what I’ve done since moving to San Francisco. I have never bragged or written it here before because it’s my choice to live this lifestyle. Clean energy that’s renewable is a must in our world today and conserving the energy we use is important as well. People can live any way they choose and I’m not here to say anyone is wrong. However, something like Earth Hour is a bit insulting to me. After outlining the above things how do you think I feel when those of us who never conserve energy, never take public transit and leave the TV on when they leave the house are now deciding for one hour they’re going to turn everything off and save energy. Some people will say to me, “well it’s a start and hopefully it will inspire others to do the same.” Agreed and I hope it does. Earth Hour shouldn’t last an hour. It should be a part of our lives and how we live and it should be on our minds at all times.

After earth hour is over, turn on the lights that you need, start recycling, switch to water conserving shower heads and find the shortest way to drive or bike to the office. Start Monday morning with a new outlook on life and try to save the world one light bulb at a time. We can do this together and don’t wait until this time next year when it’s “cool” to turn out the lights. Turning out the lights starts tonight and should continue on for the rest of your life because we owe it to our Earth to conserve energy and be responsible.