An Earth Hour Retrospective

It is now 10pm EST and Earth Hour 2009 is over in our town.  But it’s not really over is it?  We have the responsibility to celebrate Earth Hour ever hour!  We should all be responsible for our actions and for the footprints we leave on this Earth. 

It was about 7:30pm and my 6 yr old told me Earth Hour was fast approaching.  He was making his plan of action.  “If the movie isn’t over then we’ll have to turn it off at 8:29pm,”  he said.  By 8pm our movie was over and he said, “can we start it early?”  So we took some time to make sure the lights were all off in the rest of the house.  Next, we turned the a/c and fans off.  Then we unplugged our electronics.  The only lights that I could see in the house were the stove/microwave clocks which I couldn’t reach the plug from behind the stove.  I wish I knew how much electricity we saved during our hour!

We finally made it to the back porch (it was lighter there) after we lit all of our candles and set up Monopoly.  The baby was sleeping and the three of us played Monopoly.  We laughed, giggled, played, and laughed some more!  It was a very memorable evening.

Before we started our game the hubby and I stepped out front.  As I suspected all our neighbors still had their lights on.  Earth Hour wasn’t mentioned in local media so that didn’t surprise me much.  I was tempted to walk around and explain it to our neighbors and see what their response was…but I decided to enjoy the time with my family instead.  So that brings me to my question, Can one person (or one family) really make a difference?  Of course we can.  Last year I didn’t even know what Earth Hour was until I was seated on my plane coming home reading about it DURING EARTH HOUR!  How ironic I know.  This year I’ve been blogging about it for weeks, my friends and family know all about it, and I even spent an afternoon at the school explaining it to my sons class.  If just one more person celebrated Earth Hour tonight because of my efforts than YES, one person can make a difference. 

I’m actually sad that Earth Hour is over for 2009.  I’m going to try to make our own Earth Hour once a month to remind us how important the Earth is to us…and how important we are to one another. 

I’d love to hear how you spent your hour!