I turnd off the lights and went to see Nelly Furtado’s free concert during earth hour.

And yes, she sang “Turn off the light!!”

Photo’s not the best, but it was still fun! 5 years ago

Earth Hour 2009 is on 28 March 2009. Yes, I already created the goal for that event If anyone from the team is interested, or anyone for that matter to join the 2009 team, feel free to drop me a line. We can start creating the team now so that we are all in the know as the hour approaches.

In all liklihood I may “park” this goal from time to time in the “given up” area but don’t fret if I do, it’s just parked to make room temporarily for other goals. 5 years ago

It was just me and Izzy the rabbit at home since my old man was at work. I lit a bunch of candles and read by candlelight at the dining room table for a while. I fell asleep sitting up while reading and I’m very glad I didn’t catch my hair on fire! Didn’t want to turn the tv on after the hour was up. I just turned on one lamp and read some more until it was bedtime. I learned that turning the tv off is the hard part but once it is off it is easier to keep it off! 5 years ago

I totally was distracted earlier in the day and forgot to set it all up. At 7:55PM when my alarm went off I realized what I had done and then just let it pass with minor comment because I was a bit disappointed in myself. I was away from home and I think that was the reason I wasn’t on top of myself to plan it out. I do like my idea to have Earth Hour whenever I see fit! 5 years ago

i had a blast. :)
my siblings and i spent most of the night trying to turn off my brothers television since he wouldn’t comply. then we walked over to a McDonalds by our house and asked them why they didn’t participate. definitley something i’m doing more often. 5 years ago

Funny but I never heard about this on the news and only learned the facts when I saw Google darkened. My nieces were visiting for the night and were into the idea when I explained. 5 years ago

There were candles for light, and the instrumentation was all acoustic. It was 10:00-11:00 p.m. here. It was difficult for me because I need to see lyrics and music, so most of the time I just listened. It made me appreciate electricity. 5 years ago

Was simple.
I guess it should be done more often. 5 years ago

sat in a dark theater and watched El Violin in that period. Good timing, I guess.

_{Not sure if it counts; not the worst I’ve done to earth in an hour, nonetheless.}5 years ago

Since my children and I were home last evening (I sent my husband to the theater without me due to my 10-year-old’s bug), I suggested that we turn out the lights to observe Earth Hour. My suggestion prompted some initial groans from my eight-year-old, but we discussed the reasons for and benefits of “unplugging,” which blossomed into a discussion about conservation and the environment, and by 7:45 he was as on board as my 10-year old, a self-labeled “tree hugger,” who is all about conservation. We didn’t go hardcore, unplugging everything. Our participation was more symbolic, and involved simply turning off the lights in every room. My children opened the front door and looked out onto our street and what they saw at that moment made the exercise worthwhile. Not a house light was on in our immediate vicinity. Granted, we can only see four houses from ours, but they were all dark, which made us feel like we were part of something bigger than ourselves. A little bigger, at least. 5 years ago

Did leave on one light in the living room since I had work I needed to complete for today. 5 years ago

It was just me and the kids. My spouse was performing Beethoven up in central CT, so it was up to me to organize and execute this event.

My six year old got really into it, locating, not just flashlights, but hand-cranked flashlights, for each of us. We began shutting down the house at 7:55, going from room to room first shutting off lights, then looking for glowing LEDs that indicated a wall-wart or other ‘ready’ 12V power supply. By the end, my 13 year old was more into it than the six year old. She was quite diligent at finding and killing these convenience driven sources of energy drain in the name of conservation.

Both kids were amazed at how many switches, plugs, and cables we had to pull out, and we still left on the major appliances and anything with a clock (coffee maker, microwave, etc).

In the end, they decided to watch a charlie brown special on Arbor day, on a little battery powered DVD player. I explained that this was actually cheating, since the battery would just need to be re-charged, and they decided that for next Earth hour, they want to get one of the hand-cranked battery chargers.

At the end of the hour, my 15 year old, who had been reading by hand-cranked flashlight in his room, emerged and yelled “It’s 9:01. Can we turn on the DSL now?”

Sure, it was a non-event for the most part on our street. All our neighbors had their lights on. But across the river, a few houses went dark when ours did, and the enthusiasm for saving energy in the kids made it worth while.

“Hmmmm, the tide is turning…” – R. Waters. 5 years ago

because of things that were going on here at home; it would have been unkind.

But I’m happy that many institutions/businesses in Chicago participated! I hope the experience helps bring a large-scale shift in consciousness & practice. 5 years ago

I just learned that Google darkened their home page for Earth Hour 2008 – how freaking awesome is that ! (here’s a screenshot) 5 years ago

Does anyone know the date of Earth Hour 2009 ? 5 years ago

We lit candles inside the house and sat out back on the patio with two tiki torches burning, plus a kerosene lamp, just enjoying the quiet and talking for an hour. Not a typical Saturday night, but certainly an indication of how little we need the lights, TV, computers, cars or anything else to entertain ourselves. 5 years ago

Since the whole thing is largely symbolic I measure the success for us, on how it changes our ongoing behaviour.

So my son tumbles out of bed this morning and his first words are “Did you check the news? Did we make a difference?”. Despite the startling lack of information for our community, I told him yes, it mattered.

Then he said “Let’s make sure we pay attention to this all the time, so we can help the world be better”. Aaaww. Yes sweetie, we will. He’s the light’s monitor now.

I was surprised and proud of my compatriots on this one. 1 in 3 people who registered were canadian and 70% of our community said they planned to participate. All the lights on our street were out.

But nothing beats this village that got down to zero consumption for the whole hour. Way to go Hartley Bay! 5 years ago

Audrey was already asleep and my mom had already left for work so we turned everything off (lights, tv, sources of phantom power, etc.) and lit a bunch of candles in the living. Eric gave me a wonderful foot massage then we played three intense games of Yahtzee…I won! I think we’ll do this more often. If we hadn’t done this last night, we’d have likely spent that time lounging and aimlessly flipping channels. This gave us a nice little nudge to just spend the time enjoying each other’s company. 5 years ago

It was easy to switch the lights off for an hour and more – not least because I watched a movie on my computer.

Switching off the computer for 24 hours would have been far more of a challenge. Maybe that’s next! 5 years ago

Well Earth Hour, and the day of, didn’t exactly work out how I/we planned, but by 8:01 p.m. we were at least in the same room and conversing. In fact I hadn’t given much thought all day to the whole Earth Hour thing, during the tumult, but when the time arrived, we managed to dig out about a dozen candles of various shapes and sizes. The house became instantly warmer and cozier and some more of the ice between us melted away. The tension and upsets of the day seemed to lighten in the dark. By the end of the night we were sharing a couple of beers and a blankey on the couch. 5 years ago

because I layed down and fell asleep. :-) 5 years ago

I think I’m going to start doing this every other day.. I did it tonight and other than having to deal with the hubby whining about me turning off the tv, everything was good. :) I finished some work up using my lappy (bat. power). 5 years ago

BUT!

When I did catch on, at 8:40 pm, I called out to my son that we were supposed to have turned off all of the electricity at 8:00 for Earth Hour. I expected him to argue that he didn’t want to turn the TV off, or at least some grumbling…but he immediately turned off the TV and ran around looking for candles and turning off lights! Yay!

We spent the next hour playing a Native American stick dice game and poker (5 card draw and 7 card stud) by candlelight. He dug around in his closet and pulled out all the stuffed animals he hadn’t touched in ages, and set them up as spectators. And he wore the black knitted hat I bought at a Finnish store in Seattle for him, the one with the multi-colored pom-poms dangling all over it.

I think this may turn into a regular thing, it was a fun surprise! Thanks bedhead2 for the invite! Haven’t been able to be around here on 43T much lately, but thought I’d share this with everyone. :-) 5 years ago

I headed out to Toronto tonight for an Unplugged night of concerts! Nelly Furtado, Fefe Dobson, and The Philosopher Kings all put on a great show! We watched as the city lights went off, and on a very rare occasion in the city…everyone saw the stars! Perhaps it was a freezing night, but it was absolutely beautiful. I participated last year, but it is great that it got a lot of coverage this year! 5 years ago

It’s 10 pm. We’re having so much fun (candlelight, storytelling, crank radio, having some sparkling apple cider, cooking dinner by little tea-lights, real awake family time…) that I’m shutting the computer down again and keeping the excess off for the rest of the night. Cheers! 5 years ago

I was able to do this because I went out with my family. Worth Doing! 5 years ago

My kids really got into it. I am looking forward to doing it again next year. Or sooner! 5 years ago

I am so glad I did it. I love that a local radio station turned off their lights and played all “unplugged” acoustic songs for the hour. Way to go World!!! 5 years ago

My husband and I had a good time, chatting in the dark. As far as we could tell, none of our neighbors participated. But we set a good example, so maybe they will next year. 5 years ago

TV is off. My laptop is on battery (Thank goodness!) And the kids are having quite an adventure. My son is running through the house saying “Let’s make a difference to the world!”

I know this whole thing is largely a gesture, but I’m thinking that the real good it will do is in the example that it sets for the kids. I can’t wait to check the news tomorrow and see what kind of measurable difference there was. 5 years ago