Dark Planet

Sheril,
These are wonderful pictures in solidarity worldwide.

I used to live in Boston. I can't get over it worked. I mean it actually got taken seriously. Amazing.

Unless the Sears Tower moved to Boston recently, I'm pretty sure that second picture is of Chicago.

Thanks for catching that Josey :)

I celebrated Earth Hour by leaving my darkened home, and going for a walk up a nearby hill, to see what Newcastle, Australia, looked like. I was disappointed.

There were a substantial number of homes that switched off lights. Many others did not. And the view over the city looked almost the same. In particular, there were massive light towers in full operation at a nearby sports stadium; and the usual glow in the sky from lights in the city below.

Perhaps I expected too much. Newcastle was involved. There was a significant drop in power consumption, and the city council did get on board. I was not really looking at the downtown area, but over a swathe of suburbs; it might have been more obvious in some locations.

But overall, it was driven home to me that this is symbolic. Symbols are good, but if they are not followed up by more long lasting actions, it is pretty meaningless. Fortunately, the council has used this to kick off some initiatives with lasting effect.

My sister-in-law (I'm staying with my brother at present) is an inspiration. She is working hard at cutting back our power usage, and has been for some time. Her next project will be photovoltaic cells on the roof, which when combined with some more savings in how we use power should bring us to the point of generating about half the power we use. A second set of panels sometime might make the house energy neutral as far as electricity is concerned. The household is trying a number of ways to track and reduce our consumption.