Abimbola Akanwo

 Looking after Planet Earth

I almost missed Earth Hour 2008 yesterday:-).
 
Luckily, my browser default is set to Google,  Goggle had a dark background in recognition of Earth Hour 2008 , so yes, I switched off all the light in the house (and my computer) between 8 pm and 9 pm yesterday.

The concept of (switching lights off for an hour to reduce energy consumption) Earth Hour was started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia. Earth Hour 2008 was declared a global event with 28 cities registered to take part.

Yesterday, when I logged in to Earth Hour website, almost 300,000 people had registered for Earth Hour 2008 and approximately 21,000 businesses had registered to take part in the program.

Good to know some of us are doing our bit  for poor old Planet Earth :-). 

Oh, I did my small bit by turning out all the light in the house and lighting candles.  Do you what ? It was great not to have the (enery efficient) light bulbs on.  It was incredibly peaceful to just sit for an hour in a candlit room and think... 

How to Reduce Energy Consumption

Reducing our energy consumption will reduce our carbon dioxide (CO₂)  emission, sometimes refer to as "carbon footprint"

Current views on reducing our energy consumption include:-

1.  turning off appliances (television, washing machine , computer, etc) when not in use 
2. switching to energy efficient light bulbs (the energy efficient light bulbs have come a long way, at least they have in Europe. You can now get energy efficient light bulbs you'll be proud to point out to your dinner guests. Is that vain? Oh all right, call me vain.:-))
3. turning out lights when you’re not in a room (saves on your electricity bill as well!!) 
4. switching to cleaner sources of electricity like “green power” (some like solar power are pricey to install and still not as efficient as they could be, but with continuing research, efficiency will improve).

I enjoyed my one hour of candlelight tranquillity so much that I'm going to swich off all light bulbs in the house once a week for an hour and just sit still, meditate, think... whatever... in a room with a candlelight:-).