It's Energy, Stupid!

On Saturday evening about one billion people in 121 countries were expected to take part in Earth Hour. A Global event that was started in 2007 by World Wildlife Fund. Here in Canada millions participated in Earth Hour by joining the campaign to bring attention to climate change by briefly turning off their lights from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

However due to a grassroots movement campaign called “Power Hour”, it seems the effects of Earth Hour were counteracted and had relatively no impact whatsoever.

Earth Hour in Ontario only had a 4% saving in electricity, a decrease from six percent last year and five percent in 2008. As well, British Columbia only saw a 1% decrease in power savings making the event a complete waste of tax payers time and money.

Power Hour was created for those Canadians who don’t care for the environmental movement and think global warming is a “complete joke”. The basic premise behind the Power Hour movement was to have participants turn on and consume as much electricity in their homes as possible during the hour from 8:30-9:30 pm as a stern act a defiance and way to counteract WWF’s Earth Hour campaign.

We asked David Stamp, a 45 year old magician from Toronto, who partook in Power Hour on Saturday, why he believes in not joining the conservation movement and participating in Earth Hour?

“Earth Hour? What a joke! You think anyone actually CARES about the environment, saving energy or that fable called global warming? Look around man – there’s big honking SUVs everywhere, office buildings and big stores look like the Griswold’s on a daily basis. Turning off the lights for a hour once a year accomplishes NOTHING. Earth Hour is nothing but lip service. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. That’s why I stayed home and cranked the thermostat, turned on every light, turned on my oven, left the fridge door open and played my Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the same time on my 62 inch plasma while I danced around naked throwing darts at pictures of Al Gore and David Suzuki.”

Gloria Milduck is also a Power Hour activist and claims she, much like Stamp, did everything in her power (pun absolutely intended) to hinder the effects of Earth Hour. We spoke to Gloria via her landline phone (it consumes more energy than her cell) during the Power Hour event on Saturday night:

“It’s just after 8:30 pm and I’ve turned on every single light in the house. I even spent the week putting my Christmas lights back up and pulling the Christmas tree out of the basement so I can light it up. I’ve turned the TV on even though I almost never watch it. My computer monitor is staying on until 9:30. Take that, you eco-idiots!!”

One of the founding members of Power Hour is Bryce Davis III of Forrest Hill Ontario, who had this to say following Saturday nights event.

“This self imposed energy self flagellation is moronic to the extreme. Think about it. All over the world there are people that would give their left leg to have the light and power we enjoy. Right now there is a bushman somewhere in Africa, who lives in a hut, has no electricity, lives off the land, doesn’t even know what a light switch is or does, and he would easily sell one of his wives for the chance to turn on a light. That’s something we take for granted in this country. Celebrate the LIGHT. Turn them all on!”

Despite Power Hour’s growing number of supporters, there are still those loyal to fighting for conservation and believing in WWF Earth Hour Campaign. One of those people is Pam Da Soza. Da Soza is a 31 year old stay at home mother who says that despite lower numbers and only achieving relatively low savings, “it’s more of a symbolic act. It raises awareness not only about power conservation but about conservation in general.” She goes on to say that “we tend to do a lot of things that are completely unnecessary (i.e. electric can openers) that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of, you’re just being a lazy bones if you use those”. Da Soza also explains that it can be simple things like leaving lights on in a room you’re not using. Adding, “the actual result of the act itself is very little but what’s important is it gets us thinking about our consumption”. Da Soza also has an unmovable belief that “maybe if we do a good job on conserving hydro, the government and energy companies will see our good deeds and reciprocate by raising the rate we pay for it”. One can only hope to be as optimistic as Mrs. Da Soza.

At the Earth Hour event in Toronto at Dundas Square, conservation supporters passed the time in the dark by listening to musicians play on electrically lite and powered stages and instruments, wrote thousands of “I wish” messages on paper cards and attached them to trees that will no doubt one day be cut down to provide the very paper that was being attached to them, and even some eco-fanatics were showing their support for Earth Hour and global conservation by live blogging on their computers.

When we asked one of the supporters what she was doing she replied, “Oh, I’m just, you know posting stuff on the WWF Facebook and Twitter accounts to let people know how awesome it was to be sitting here in the dark and not use or rely on electricity for one hour”.

Even though Canada can brag that 250 cities turned off the lights to support Earth Hour, St. John, New Brunswick wasn’t one of them.

City Spokesperson Leah Fitzbalmer told us, “We didn’t really see any benefit from what we did last year [Earth Hour 09].” She went on to add, “non-essential lights are already turned off all over the city on weekdays and overnight. Earth Hour is kind of like Valentines Day, we don’t really need a day spend a lot of money and waste peoples time to prove something that we do on a regular basis”.

A Canadian research company conducted a massive national phone survey on Saturday night to determine how many Canadians partook in Earth Hour vs Power Hour. The results were published early this morning and are as follows:

7% of Canadians who answered said they participated in Earth Hour
8% of Canadians who answered said they participated in Power Hour
and the remaining 85% of Canadians who answered said “I could care less about either, now leave me alone it’s Saturday, I’m drinking with my friends and the f***ing hockey game is on”.