Earth Hour

During Earth Hour, I made soup. I had prepared the ingredients beforehand and had put most of them in the pot when I turned off the lights. The pot simmered in the dark until the soup aroma filled the house, then I turned off the stove. I took the lid off the pot to let the soup cool. When I turned the lights back on, I pureed the soup. This was a chicken-corn soup. I am now dubbing it the Earth Hour soup.

In my hour of darkness, I went outside to see what was going on. I was glad to see the overhead street lights turned off. Good on the City for taking part. But I was surprised that on our street, most of the houses were dark. Even my Clampett neighbours next door had no lights on. Our street was the darkest I have ever seen it, darker than when I come home at 3 am.

In some houses, candles flickered inside, so I knew the lights out was intentional.

I sent The Man an e-mail, because last year during Earth Hour, we were in Bali.

This morning, the newspaper reported that electricity use in Toronto during Earth Hour was down 15% from normal use at that hour, saving the City 2,545 megawatts of power, almost doubling last year's energy savings. The mayor announced that Toronto "gets it."

Even though Earth Hour is a symbolic call for climate change, it is a voluntary response. I am sure some businesses turn out their lights due to social pressure. But I am most surprised by the participation on our rough and tumble street of clashing political bents, sweeping spectrum of ethno-cultural origins, and wide socio-economic array of lifestyle choices. Who knew concern for the environment would be common to us?

So today, I am serving my Earth Hour soup for lunch to the directors of our environmental fund. We are reviewing applications to determine which environmental groups to fund.