Earth Hour – An Internet Pro Embraces the Non-Electrical

Last Saturday night was Earth Hour. Organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature in 2007, Earth Hour encourages people and businesses to turn off lights and non-essential electronics to raise awareness about climate change.

Since 2007 the Earth Hour movement has spread throughout the world to include over 1,000 cities including Minneapolis. Though - I have to say, in my humble opinion, the word didn’t really get out beyond the Wedge coop member, counter-culture types (guess where I shop).

I first heard about the movement while I was taking a yoga class at CorePower Yoga Uptown. My teacher invited the class to join her on Saturday night from 8:30-9:30 PM for a candlelight yoga class to commemorate Earth Hour. At the time I didn’t think much of it – probably because I was light-headed from about thirty grueling vinyasas.

Later that week I was shopping for a birthday gift at a perennial favorite gift / toy store called Wonderment and I noticed a sign in the window reminding people passing by about Earth Hour. The final straw came later that day, when my son Jackson told me that we would need to get things done early so we could turn off the lights & electricity for Earth Hour.

Okay – three times – I couldn’t turn a blind eye - I realized that I needed to participate.

8:20 PM – We start preparing for Earth Hour – built a fire in the fireplace, stocked the woodpile, lit the candles, turned off the lights upstairs.

8:28, 8:29 PM – Crazy Scampering through the house – poured the wine (cupcakes and water for the kiddies). Got comfortable in a cozy spot around the fire.

8:30 PM – LIGHTS OUT & UNPLUGGED into DARKNESS

Over the next hour we listened to a Brady Carmichael original story by David, played music (acoustic of course), watched the fire and reveled in the silence. It was actually, really, really fun.

Around 9:35 PM we turned on the lights and said goodnight to the kids. It didn’t take long before I wondered out loud what it would be like to do Earth Hour every week. Who knew that turning off the electricity for an hour could have such a profound effect.

Did turning off our electricity encourage us to think about climate change? No, not really (at least for us), but it did spur a long conversation about how electricity enables us to disengage from the sun and the earth’s daily cycle. We can do whatever we want at any time, but we pay a price for this ability to disengage and use all the gadgetry.

If you didn’t hear about Earth Hour or didn’t get a chance to participate, I encourage you to take an hour, turn things off, look inward, turn your own light up and raise your glass to mother earth.

Life is truly magnificent!