I'm switching off for five minutes tomorrow morning.
There's this French initiative that has caught on well beyond the country's borders: turning off our lights for five minutes in the evening on Thursday, February 1st. (That's 10:55 am to 11:00 am our time here in B.C.)
It's meant to draw attention for the need for action on climate change:
Why February 1st? Because the next day, in Paris, the latest report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be released. This event will take place in France; we can't pass up this opportunity to focus attention on the urgency of the global climate situation. (my translation)
The idea has taken hold, passed along on blogs and email lists around the world. The idea isn't to save the world by reducing energy consumption by a tiny amount (although, hey, every bit helps) – it's to raise awareness and signal just how broad support is for urgent, coordinated action.
At a time when even the Harper Conservatives are realizing they need to make some changes, this is an opportunity to push the powers that be all the harder. So vote with your fingers: switch off the lights, shut down your laptops, turn off the radio... and let's find out just how much power there can be in powering down.
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I know... I wish I'd heard
I know... I wish I'd heard about it sooner myself. We were able to power down most of our tech stuff here (except the things that take even more power to start back up again), and switched our company web site into maintenance mode for the five minutes. But it would have been great if we'd had more time for the word to spread.
(That said, I'll take that as a spur to use ChangeEverything.ca even more often as a way to checking up on the latest change news, and passing along the info I come across. :-> )
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Hi Rob & others, Has anyone
Hi Rob & others,
Has anyone seen a summary of the results of the '5 minute rest for the planet' shut down. I would like to report on the success of our organizations 'shut-down' through a couple of our websites, but it would definitely be stronger to contextualize our local efforts within the larger global impact.
Any links to stories, results etc.. would be great.
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Yes indeedy, Ted - there's a
Yes indeedy, Ted - there's a handy BBC news story here.
The article focuses on Europe, and particularly France, where consumption dropped by over one per cent (which is pretty remarkable, when you consider how much power use is either out of the hands of individuals or not exactly easy to switch off).
Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything about the impact in North America, and it would be cool to put our efforts into that context. (My strong suspicion is that the discussion around the switch-off raised more awareness than any power-usage drop itself.)
From the story:
The Eiffel Tower, lit by 20,000 bulbs, also went dark at 1955 (1855 GMT).
During the switch-off, the power grid operator RTE observed a fall of 800 megawatts, representing just over 1% of France's total consumption. [...]
Some experts warned the switch-off could backfire, arguing that more energy could be consumed because of a power spike when lights were turned back on. However, no problems were immediately reported.
Several other European cities also staged symbolic blackouts. In Rome, the lights of two of its celebrated monuments, the Colosseum and the Capitol, were turned off. In Spain, Madrid's Puerta de Alcala arch was plunged into darkness. In the Greek capital, Athens, lights illuminating several public buildings - including the parliament, city hall, and the foreign ministry - went dark.
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I was so excited when I
I was so excited when I first heard about this initiative, and then to my dismay I realized that I it 10:54 the day of. I this is a very progressive initiative, and had I known in advance I would have encouraged more people to participate, particularly large businesses, schools, and universities. Unfortunately here I am sitting, at school, in a well light room with heating, listening the buzz of a prehistoric projector, typing away on my laptop. On the upside, as I understand it, the word did get to Langara college and they are currently participating in the five minutes of rest. We could all use a rest.