I am so glad that Earth Hour has come and gone....now don't get me wrong...I am a firm believer that we need to make efforts to have an environmental conscience...but I don't appreciate being made to feel like a pariah because I am energy efficient everyday and not just for an hour once a year.
The mayor of Toronto even had the audacity to say the participating in Earth hour meant (and I'm paraphrasing here) you were voting for the Earth and to not participate meant you were voting for global warming! Huh? So what I do the rest of the year doesn't count? So all those who are energy hogs 8759 hours per year...are in with the environmental movement...just because that 1 hour...because of peer pressure...they succumb and say oh well, I look at me...I'm an environmentalist!!!
This is like saying your religious because you go to church on Christmas Day...Come on....let's be real here...I'm not against the symbolism of Earth Day, nor the symbolic gesture of going to church once a year...but to consider that if you don't participate in this most holy Earth Hour means you are against the planet.....I personally find that offensive...
So no, I did
not turn off all the lights and burn candles and sing Koom-bay-ah for an hour. I had the one light on in the room I was occupying, and was watching TV....like I do most evenings between 830 and 930. On my street, all the homes which usually have their external lights blazing every evening, turned them off for 1 hour...only to turn them on again later...and probably for the next 365 days. I, on the other hand, only have the outside lights on when I have guests (because I don't want them to trip) or at Christmas time.
So does this make me a bad person....Just for the record...although I follow the tenets of a particular religion, I don't go to church...and I don't go at Christmas either, because I would find that somewhat hypocritical.
So why don't we look at a longer lasting solution to the environment, as opposed to patting ourselves on the back and saying "hey look what I did for an hour!" You never know...it just might save our collective souls!
The mayor of Toronto even had the audacity to say the participating in Earth hour meant (and I'm paraphrasing here) you were voting for the Earth and to not participate meant you were voting for global warming! Huh? So what I do the rest of the year doesn't count? So all those who are energy hogs 8759 hours per year...are in with the environmental movement...just because that 1 hour...because of peer pressure...they succumb and say oh well, I look at me...I'm an environmentalist!!!
This is like saying your religious because you go to church on Christmas Day...Come on....let's be real here...I'm not against the symbolism of Earth Day, nor the symbolic gesture of going to church once a year...but to consider that if you don't participate in this most holy Earth Hour means you are against the planet.....I personally find that offensive...
So no, I did
not turn off all the lights and burn candles and sing Koom-bay-ah for an hour. I had the one light on in the room I was occupying, and was watching TV....like I do most evenings between 830 and 930. On my street, all the homes which usually have their external lights blazing every evening, turned them off for 1 hour...only to turn them on again later...and probably for the next 365 days. I, on the other hand, only have the outside lights on when I have guests (because I don't want them to trip) or at Christmas time.So does this make me a bad person....Just for the record...although I follow the tenets of a particular religion, I don't go to church...and I don't go at Christmas either, because I would find that somewhat hypocritical.
So why don't we look at a longer lasting solution to the environment, as opposed to patting ourselves on the back and saying "hey look what I did for an hour!" You never know...it just might save our collective souls!
1 comment:
While reading this article, something dawned on me and it wasn't Sol. Where I live, we haven't seen Sol in quite some time. A missing star report has been filed with the appropriate authority.
Along with my $100 Hydro-One bill - for $40 of electricity - they keep including lots and lots of expensive, glossy, full-color brochures, suggesting they're going to reward me handsomely when I start using less electricity each month.
It struck me, since part of my electricity cost is for heating my apartment and I don't want to freeze to death, how am I ever going to get rewarded for using less electricity, when already I couldn't possibly use less electricity?
Apparently, as Ms. Moser-Stern points out, only the energy spendthrifts are going to be rewarded for using less electricity.
Responsible, conservation-minded people who already use as little electricity as possible, simply cannot be rewarded?
I guess we'd all best start using lots and lots more electricity so when we cut back, it's at least possible for Hydro-One to reward us, if they can afford it after paying for all those expensive brochures and a seemingly infinite number of grossly overpaid Vice Presidents.
This all makes as much sense as paying $100 for $40 worth of electricity. Is this Bizarro World - or what?
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