Digital Culture Studies

We did it, even though most of our neighbours did not. And although we live pretty green, we learned that we still have too many things that plug in. More frustrating was how little changed the Chicago skyline was during the hour - big buildings did turn off their lights, but plenty did not.

Scrabble by candelight is hard. Or maybe it was the wine. Better pictures than mine of Earth hour events can be seen in the Earth Hour Flickr Pool. But the big question is, did participation make a difference? Time says, maybe. Sceptics say no. Believers say yes. ComEd says there was a 5% reduction in power useage between 8-9, as compared to last Saturday. Is 5% enough? I don’t think so.

Of course the essential problem remains: people who think this is a problem will always be looking for ways to lower their carbon footprint number, and people who don’t think it is a problem will not, and as long as there are more people in the second camp than the first, very little will change, and that seems like a great shame.

Earth Hour originated in Sydney, in 2007, but on March 29, 2008, will be a global event. Chicago is one of the cities participating, as the flagship city in the United States. Never heard of Earth Hour? Their video explains it all.