Powering down….

Did you do your bit for Planet Earth on Saturday evening?

Yup – I had signed on, for Earth Hour that is! I was willing to give up a little light on Saturday evening for the betterment of Planet Earth.

Still, you know what they say about best laid plans and all. The G-man and I were dining at the at friends home around that time, and although she was definitely up for the cause, and we tried to dine by candlelight (how romantic!), cooking by candlelight on the BBQ and ensuring that e-coli was not part of the menu proved to be a greater challenge than we anticipated!

We thought we’d check out the night sky, but 8pm was not really late enough to get the pitch black we needed to see the stars very well. When the big power outage happened a few summers ago across the South-Eastern US and Canada, each evening we would step outside to watch the stars appear. Interestingly, this was when I met many of my neighbors whom had not ventured out on the street before, usually just zipping in and out of the garages with their cars, rarely stopping to say hello. And the night view back then was fantastic to say the least – it was something you would usually not be able to see inside the City limits.

As well, I had not considered that by not being home we would not be able to execute the powering down of all the lights set on timers in our home, which is the way we conserve power on a daily basis. Most of our major power guzzlers, with the exception of the refrigerator, are on some sort of timer, which shuts them down completely (no standby power) for 8 or more hours each day. The first year we did this we saw a 25% reduction in our hydro bill for the year! To achieve Earth Hour we needed to be home to manually override the timers, and so we failed the challenge.

The boys tried humor me and play along during dinner but they were not as boy scout as I know the G-man can be. He is actually a great boy scout, with lots of hand crank operated radios, flashlights and other fun toys, which have come in very handy now and again, as we are often without power here in the west end of Ottawa.

I heard the results this morning – only about a 4-5% reduction in power in the participating cities – I thought it would be more but considering our own lack of involvement, I’m not really surprised. Actually I’m a bit disappointed in myself, as I could have planned better and made a bigger personal impact.

Here’s an un-related thought for the day: "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not using it in a fruit salad"

Knit on…..