Earth Hour 2008

On the weekend we had some friends over for dinner and participated in ‘Earth Hour’ by turning out the lights at 8:00pm. For those who don’t know, Earth Hour is a symbolic gesture where people all over the world turn off their lights for an hour to raise awareness of the issues of profligate energy usage and its environmental consequences. It was a special moment, sitting around by candlelight, eating our baked apples and sharing some good conversation.

Looking out our back window at the little town of Sambro, however, it was difficult to discern any difference. The lights of the town blazed into the night sky as usual. Were any of our neighbours participating? Did Earth Hour 2008 make any impact? On a practical level, of course, it didn’t. The steps that are required to address global environmental issues are enormous, much bigger than the turning out your lights for an hour.

The difficulty in getting people to participate, even in a small gesture like this, raises a much bigger problem: people don’t like to change; and this problem of human behaviour is the point where every movement stalls. Sitting in the dark by candlelight the thought came that the 21^st Century was ripe for a new Enlightenment: this time not about the external world, but about ourselves.

“…before man can make the changes necessary in the outside world, he must learn to know the kind of doing he should prevent in himself, and the how of preventing it. Change must begin in his own behaviour.” - F.M Alexander