Turning your lights off for an hour is just lame
March 28th, 2009
As the timezones cross into the 8:30pm mark today, supposedly millions will be turning the lights of their home off for an hour. We’re three hours away from that here in Rio. To me it it’s borderline disgusting.
Yesterday, Gwen Bell helped show how much of a joke this is. People’s attention span is now so short that an hour is all we can devote to the only planet we can live on. An Earth Day messes with people schedules, so let’s squeeze this demonstration into prime time and hope the Earth cools down.
By all means, don’t take me the wrong way: showing that you care about the problem and is at least trying to do something is somewhat praiseworthy. But believing an hour is enough can probably be the biggest mistake of the generations alive today. If by 9:30 you have all your lights back on, all your energy-inefficient appliances plugged in, nothing has changed.
So, please, if you want to actually try and make a change, do something that works for the long term. Here are a few suggestions:
- Replace all of your regular light bulbs for compact fluorescents. You’ll leave some extra money at the cashier once, but will save on every bill, and won’t need to replace them for some six years;
- Use a public means of transportation or ride a bike, especially if alone, instead of driving a car;
- Be a pain in your friends’ asses, insisting on how important it is to change these bulbs and mainly these habits, and that every tiny change makes a world of difference.
Seeing global warming as a foreign problem, as something that is happening ‘to the Earth’, as something that is happening to distant forests or remote seas, is dumb.
If you end up turning your lights off, please, light up your mind.