For more pictures of this event taking place around the world see the link to the National Geographic report on it Earth Hour Pictures: Before and After - across the world
I thought it would be quite interesting to see if my family could survive just 1 hour without electricity. So, how did we get on........
Well firstly, I didn't manage to persuade my brother to participate as, for him, the thought of spending an entire 60 minutes without his xbox was unbearable. Instead he decided to part take in the Human Achievement Hour (I am not making this up - it does exist and occurs at the same time as Earth Hour) which encourages people to " Leave your lights on to express your appreciation for the inventions and innovations that make today the best time to be alive and the recognition that future solutions require individual freedom not government coercion". The rest of my family decided to humour me in this challenge, even though they felt it was rather futile as they questionned the impact it would actually have on the global energy consumption (this is true but it kind wasn't the point). So, all the lights and appliances in my house went off, apart from the room my brother occupied, and the first thing I noticed, apart from the darkness, was how quiet everything was (a word of warning, if any of you decide to try this sometime, make sure you light candles before you turn the lights off, as trying to find them, along with matches, and then light them in the pitch black is interesting to say the least!). Unfortunately this peace and quiet didn't last long as my stepdad felt the need to moan about not being able to make a cup of tea literally every 5 minutes. My mum was rather more tolerant than I thought she would be, apart from complaining about the smell of the candles and frequently having to shout at the cat to prevent her from chasing the flickering light of the candles - honestly she was so close to setting herself a light on numerous occasions! I didn't find it too bad but this is partly because I don't really use many appliances and I often get bored of watching TV after 10 minutes. The only thing I hated (and I really did hate this) was the fact that with no lights I was enable to read - reading with a candle it particularly tricky. We therefore sat and had a few lively debates - all revolving around geographical topics and the environment - which I thought was great (although I don't think next time I will be allowed to choose the topics) and they become so lively that our hour was extended to a few as we just lost track of time. However, this was brought to an abrupt end, after my stepdad (gasping with thirst!) may a dash for the kettle - turning on all the lights on the way.
Overall, I didn't find it too bad and I think that I could have gone on longer than 1 hour. I missed the lights the most and I started to realise how restricted people who live without lighting must be - especially those who live near the equator and so experience a very quick transition from daylight to darkness. Did I learn anything from the experience? Well, yes I did. Apart from the fact that animals and candles possibly don't mix, I realised how much technology has killed conversation. It also made me think about the people who complete 8766 Earth Hours a year, as many in the world do not have access to electricity at all. I asked my mum what she thought and she said that she could not believe how much we were reliant on lights and how, despite having candles, we were very restricted to what we could do. Therefore, when I asked her if she would do it again, she said she would like more warning (to be fair I did announce my plans to my family at like 8:25pm) so that she could go out a buy a lot more candles! If anybody reading this, tried to last 60 minutes without electricity, it would be interesting to know how you got on
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