A light is a symbol, as is the act of turning it off. Symbols are given power by people

[bcholmes]

At 9:30 p.m., the conclusion of the second global Earth Hour, the meter at Toronto Hydro's control centre that measures city-wide electricity demand hit 2,545 megawatts – 15 per cent below typical demand at that time and 7 per cent below the lowest demand during Earth Hour in 2008.

— "Earth Hour II is a smash"

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I turned off my lights and my computer and walked and took a bus to a restaurant and ate from the buffet. Not dramatic as symbols go, but no power being used just for me.

Oh, except the naan bread. They would have cooked that fresh for me. And it was worth it.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought so too - Sydney power consumption was 9% less. I live in the Newcastle Metro area, but I'm sure it was similar.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Nice! I'm glad that it seems to have made a difference. I was actually on the road, in the car, during the first fifteen minutes of Earth Hour and was a little bummed that none of the corporate buildings that I saw seemed to have their lights off, especially as it's an off-hours time anyway. So it's quite gratifying to hear this.

Our Earth Hour experience this year was a bit less dramatic than last year's. Last year, I tripped the main breaker off for the hour, which made a big difference as all the appliances and so on went silent. This year, all the lights and extraneous electronics like computers were turned off. However, elwoodontario and okoshun were here and there was a hockey game on, so my suggestion of turning off the television was vetoed. As such, we left the main breaker on. If I had thought of it, I could have still tripped off all the individual breakers to everything but the outlet where the TV was, but it didn't occur to me at the time, so I just went upstairs and spent some quiet time, the hauled out an old-school phone and called my parents. I knew that the phone drew power (just from the phone jack rather than from a plug), but my Dad had called and left a cryptic message so I was worried. It turned out that my brother-in-law had been in a very bad car accident and was in the hospital, but he's okay now -- he has a concussion but seems to be alright otherwise.