Sunday, March 30, 2008

Local Earth Hour Report

At our home in Detroit, Michigan, at 7:45 PM last night, there was a mad scramble to get the computers down and the lights off and locate candles, oil lamps and matches.  I was afraid we wouldn't make it, but we did!  YAY!  We could see three other houses from  our front windows that were dark, so we decided to walk around the block and count dark and light houses.  On our immediate block, there were 111 electrically lit houses and only 17 that were dark, and some of those were abandoned (empty, for sale) and I am sure on a Saturday night, some people were just out partying.  There was a row of six houses all dark on the next block over, but we had agreed only to count our block.  BB thinks maybe 5% of the people complied.  He thinks most people didn't even know about it.  I was really disappointed.

PB complained bitterly the whole time and kept wanting to turn the light on and if I used the indiglo on my watch to let him know how long he had to wait, he called me a hypocrite.  He refused to do anything but sit there and complain for a full hour.  BB told PB we were "doing it for Mama."  Not for the earth or the environment, but for me.  In other words, they wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't insisted.  Very sad.  I am sad, hope your report is better.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yep, the lights were off from 8-9 and such a great idea. I would like a campaign to permanently turn off billboard lights all over the country. People should threaten to boycott products advertised by artificial lighting. If the city cut the power to the lights on our street I would be delighted.

Hope all is well with you and the boys,

Love always,
Sam

a/k/a Nadine said...

I had four candles lit, but I did momentarily break the pact, as I was in danger of losing my just-bought-that-morning contact lens when I tried to take them out in the dark. Dur. Clearly I should've thought to do that prior to 8pm.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

Well, I think that's a legitimate transgression!

Anonymous said...

I think that number in your block is still great! Last year it was only Sydney city, so next year a lot more will know about it! Our youngest thought it was really funny 'Dad' had a shower in the dark and wanted to try the same the night after :) Climate Changed has made a huge impact on our country for a long time because of the droughts, so as a country it feels good the whole world is starting to adopt changed habits about power usage and the environment :)

Anonymous said...

3/31/08
Greetings --
Sounds like a very fine idea. I've been pretty much
under the covers, sleeping and keeping warm, and
hadn't heard of this until just now.
Maybe we'll just do a night of our own, since
we missed the official one.
Good for you guys.
Pam

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

Thanks so much Anonymous and Pam. I've been into the environment since I was a kid, so for me, it is VERY DISAPPOINTING and UPSETTING than not more people are. But yeah, it does turn out that most people don't seem to know about it. However, on CNET last night, I was reading a lot of really negative comments which upset me further.