Earth Day - Observations - Ottawa, Canada

As we religiously observed Earth Hour at the Bhadha residence, I thought I'd go for a walk around the neighborhood and see how other people were doing. We turned off the computers, TV, all the lights and had dinner by the candle light.

It was a fairly cold night, so I didn't get a chance to go very far, but from the observations that I did make, I wasn't surprised at the results.

• One out of every four houses had their lights on. I even saw two houses that had their Christmas light on.
• Some houses had their lights off, but their TVs were still running. (Maybe because there was a big NHL rivalry game - Montreal VS Toronto so die hard fans weren't 'THAT' committed to Earth Hour..Understandable!!)
• 99% of the houses had their porch/driveway lights on - Which is fine by me because most of those lights have an ambient light sensor and are better left on for security reasons as well.
• Businesses hadn't given any thought to this what so ever. Gas stations and fast food joints had their lights on as usual.

My observations were made in a neighborhood that is well off. That mean most of the people who live here have jobs, drive a car, and watch TV. That translates into people having heard about Earth hour at work, or on the radio, or on TV (news).

The results that 1/4 people didn't care or know about Earth hour wasn't surprising. It's what I had expected. If everyone cared about the impacts on the environment, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.

For the world premiere of Earth hour, I think the results were fairly good. As this event wasn't designed to reduce consumption, but rather raise awareness of the impacts of wasted energy, I think it has done it's job. I heard people talking about it at work, and on the busses. For others who don't believe in it, or don't care, well, they just won't bother to do anything about it.

Thus is life...