Comments on: Some thoughts on Earth Hour

By: Olivier Lalin

Olivier Lalin — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:48:19 +0000

Right on ! Thanks god this Earth day is Over – Everyone felt good for a few days getting their interior designer to turn their living space Green! We are reaching a huge world crisis due to the price of the Barrel soaring- And most people still go out buying new SUV every couple of Years or heat their apartment in such a way in winter that you have to walk around naked – The US is Crumbling because no one cares about the earth more then the usual Earth Day

By: mmj

mmj — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:24:55 +0000

Earth Hour was, IMHO, not a crock. It was a PR strategy to get people to think about energy conservation and climate change. And, while there are many of us who already do simple things like conserve energy by turning off the lights, there are even more who don’t.

I heard about plenty of folks who deliberately kept their lights on, who idled their cars or adopted a general FU attitude for the event and that’s their prerogative, certainly. It was a PR strategy and not everyone needs to buy into it.

My biggest fear is that people don’t think about conserving energy usage. We live in a province whose government recently adopted nuclear energy — an expensive environmental disaster — because people don’t want to compromise their lifestyle or business opportunities in the face of the very real climate crisis.

By: Zoey Castelino

Zoey Castelino — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:00:51 +0000

Okay, maybe the Laguna Beach comment was a little harsh – and I was only kidding about that. (Probably had something to do with the mention of celebrity gossip and love of coffee shops.) But the more I read it, the more I have to agree with Joscelyn over the ladies Gloss.

But then again, that too is my opinion, right?

By: Zoey Castelino

Zoey Castelino — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:14:30 +0000

You know, it’s kinda funny that this comes out now. I personally didn’t participate in Earth Hour for various reasons. One being that it was more sizzle than steak. A cute little show, but nothing that will in anyway shape the future of this planet. Much like Hands Across America or the Hooters Racing circuit.

On a personal note, I for one can never support or forgive the World Wildlife Fund. They forced the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) who happens to share the same ‘initials’ to change their name in 2002 to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)

As far as the girls from Laguna Beach (or a rival PR company… I honestly couldn’t tell the difference) saying that they had a different take, well everyone has an opinion.

And you know what they say about opinions.

By: Kyra

Kyra — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:21:34 +0000

Jos, I hadn’t noticed that you were a contrarian! (Kidding.)

I think that the Earth Hour effort was interesting in the way that it brought people together to ‘celebrate’ turning off the power. It reminded me of the blackout of ‘03 and was a great reason to eat by candlelight. People asked me throughout the day what I was ‘doing’ for Earth Hour. I like that kind of thing.

But of course, party poopers are everywhere. A friend of ours was having a dinner party that night and we asked him what time we should drop by. He said ‘whenever’. This was when we realized he didn’t know about the event (don’t ask) and we explained about how everyone was shutting off the power for ‘Earth Hour’. His response was, “I’m not following that rule.”

Now, he’s a unique case to say the least (and notoriously contrarian), but as we tried to explain that it wasn’t a ‘rule’ (more of a symbolic gesture) he brushed us off and said he wasn’t going to be made to feel guilty for having ‘one stupid light on in his kitchen’.

By: from the front desk

from the front desk — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:28:28 +0000

Let me first say that I am behind miss Joscelyn 100%. My better half and I were downtown after an afternoon of indoor climbing and waited, and waited and wait…oh, hey there they go…the lights on the hotels popped off at around 8:30. The thing that bugged me the most was the billboards and signs. Street lights, emergency lights leave them on, safety prevails, but signs advertising hair care or club that wont open for two more hours…disappointing to say the least. It was just an expensive effort to make everyone feel good about themselves. a concert at Nathan Philip square?! They had two huge LED TVs going up there with amps, not to mention Nelly Furtado, whom I’m guessing doesn’t come cheap; had they let it be an organic experience where people could individually make of it what they would instead of enticing a couple thousand free concert loving people down town, they probably could have afforded to keep those community rinks open and saved the equivalent of the power needed to run a small Quebec ski town. But hey! Torontonians need to celebrate their good deed with pomp and ceremony.

All in all, Joscelyn, you are 100% right, Earth Hour was a crock! a Magnificent display communications execution, but as far as really helping the world in a time of quick paced crisis…I don’t think an 8.7% dip in electricity usage will help build that green wall of UV protection, and it certainly wont make The Sheraton turn off it’s sign on the weekends, make your friend stop driving her jeep when she can take public transport or make people stop and think about purchasing their plastic bottled water.

Thank you for voicing your opinion and in turn letting me agree with you.

–I’m now off to check out what they were saying at Gloss–

By: Joscelyn

Joscelyn — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:19:03 +0000

I defended my point on the Gloss Blog, but one thing I’ll add is this: did anyone else not see the ridiculousness in a concert to promote Earth Hour? Yes it was a “green” concert, in the dark. But wouldn’t it have been better, energy-wise, to not have a concert at all? Ok, I’m done… I think. You never know….

By: Laura Modesto, Veritas Communications

Laura Modesto, Veritas Communications — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:59:16 +0000

At gloss, we had a different take on Earth Hour: http://www.glossblog.ca