I was fortunate enough to have friends in different cities who helped organized bits and pieces of the Earth Hour event, so they deserve a pat on the back for activism and raising awareness for global warming and energy conservation. However, this is not the reason I'm writing today. I'm not here to criticize the event itself or the organizers who had no control over this issue at all.
What I'm talking about are the bandwagon-jumping hypocrites that tried to, dare I use the term, 'harass' others into dimming their lights with them. Although I give them credit for participating in the event, the hypocrites that harassed me relentlessly to turn off my lights had totally missed the point about the event and in some ways only participated to assuage their guilt for their massive energy consumption and carbon footprints.
The harassment came in many forms, including but not limited to, e-mail, MSN messages, Facebook messages, even text messages. What bothered me the most though, was the content of the messages that I received and it gave me the idea that they totally missed the point about the event while crucifying others that for whatever reason did not participate. One such message was so blatantly stupid and littered with signs of bandwagon jumping that I was disgusted.
"
Dim the lights! ... David Suzuki will be proud."
When did making David Suzuki proud have anything to do with energy conservation? That's totally besides the point. The Earth's environment is what we're all trying to conserve, not David Suzuki's ego.
The aftermath of the whole thing was sickening. One such individual that harassed me about Earth Hour had glorified herself as an environmentalist due to her participation when she did not realize her own hypocrisy since she has no interest in public transportation and drives everywhere by herself. It is comical how this individual crucified people who did not turn off their lights for that one hour when she chooses to live a nocturnal lifestyle which ironically means she wakes up at night and ends up turning all her lights on when everyone else would be asleep with their lights off.
The point of this rant is that you can't turn off your lights for an hour one day in a year at 8pm and tell yourself you're helping the planet out while hopping in your 300hp SUV, driving everywhere when you could just as easily take public transportation. That's just hypocrisy and it makes me sick. The point of Earth Hour was to raise awareness, and considering the number of people that jumped on the bandwagon it seems to have achieved that goal. So now that you have the awareness, you're supposed to change your lifestyles to do your part to help the environment. If we sincerely want to help out with environmental conservation we each need to do our part and that isn't jumping on a bandwagon to lessen your guilt when you drive anywhere or over-consume.
And helping the environment includes, but is not limited to, some simple lifestyle changes that aren't overly inconvenient:
- Replace all your incandescent light bulbs (at least the ones you use most often) with compact fluorescent light bulbs.
- Washing your clothes with COLD WATER.
- Reduce air conditioning use in the summer and reduce heating in the winter by dressing warmly.
- Turn off all electronics when not using them.
- Unplug electronics if you will not be using them again for a while.
- Dry your clothes on a clothesline instead of using the dryer. I think clothes smell better when they've been sun dried :P.
- Use less hot water - ie. when washing dishes or install a low-flow shower head.
- Install a programmable thermostat to turn off your heater or air conditioner during the day when no one is home. If you don't want to install a programmable thermostat, you could also turn off your air conditioning or heater every morning before you leave to work or school.
- Recycle and reuse AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Manufacturing requires electricity and many of our products are manufactured in parts of the world where electricity is generated from coal-fire power plants.
- Buy recycled paper products. This reduces the number of trees that need to be cut and helps maintain photosynthesis which gives us oxygen and converts carbon dioxide into biomass.
- Think global, EAT LOCAL. Support local farm markets and buy locally grown goods, this way it cuts down on the transportation required to ship the food. A good book to read about this is 100-Mile Diet: A year of local eating by two local Vancouverites James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith.
- Walk or take public transportation whenever possible.
- If you must drive, make sure your tires are properly inflated to the right pressure.
- RECYCLE ELECTRONICS AND OLD BATTERIES PROPERLY. THEY DO NOT BELONG IN THE GARBAGE, AS MANY CIRCUIT BOARDS CONTAIN TOXIC MATERIALS.
That's all I could think of off the top of my head.
You could also write your local, provincial and federal government letters to get them to enforce strict emission laws.
If you really want to help the planet, those are the things you can do and I could honestly say I've done all that I've listed above, including writing the letters.
Saving the planet requires more than one simple act for one hour.
... oh one more thing. Please don't go around crucifying people who for one reason or another didn't participate in some token event when they do more than you ever have, and this extends beyond environmentalism. Damn hypocrites.
