Countdown to Earth Hour
Prince George, B.C. – Into its 8th year internationally, tonight's Earth Hour will be the 7th year Canadians have participated in the global event…
"I think Earth Hour has done a great job in its first seven years of giving us one moment during the year when we all focus on how serious the challenge of climate change is," says World Wildlife Fund President and CEO, David Miller.
Speaking with 250News, the former Toronto mayor says, "This year, we're asking people to think a little bit differently – more about solutions."
"And it can be overwhelming because it's global in scale, but there are solutions available to us, as individuals, and us, collectively – in our cities and provinces, and, even, nationally."
Earth Hour began as a movement by the WWF, along with activist mayors and municipalities. Set for between 8:30pm and 9:30pm this evening, 2014's Earth Hour is expected to be the largest yet with 158 countries and territories participating, and 7000 towns and cities doing their part to take 'a moment of darkness'.
Miller says the #momentofdarkness is this year's theme, where the WWF is asking people to upload videos and images of what they'll be thinking about during the hour. "And I actually think it's really important," he says, "Because people want to know that there's something that we can do to make that difference and I think Earth Hour is the perfect time to have that conversation."
BC Hydro is encouraging customers to see for themselves the impact of their own personal efforts this evening. Hydro's Community Relations Manager for the Northern Region, Bob Gammer, says customers can sign up for or login to their myHydro account online at bchydro.com and compare their energy usage tonight to the same period last Saturday night, so they can see how much they personally contributed to the overall effort of Earth Hour. "Every little bit really adds up."
Comox, Courtenay, North Saanich, Sidney, and Qualicum were the top five BC communities in reducing their energy consumption last year. A problem at a substation prevented the collection of Prince George data in 2013. Gammer admits there's been a spotty reporting record for our city, but believes our contribution will be available on Sunday. As a whole, the province saved 136 megawatt hours of electricity during the hour last year – that's the equivalent of turning off more than 10 million 12.5watt LED light bulbs.
The City of Prince George plans to turn out the LED lights in the trees outside City Hall this evening.
Comments
“saved 136 megawatt hours of electricity” is a bit of a fallacy. We don’t really save anything, it’s just available capacity not being used. We can store electricity, which is the real energy problem we have.
That should have said we can’t store electricity.
Just another feel good initiative which makes some people believe they’re doing something positive.
And in a few short months we will all be told to “Light up the Night”. Guess that will blow the one hour earth hour out of the water. Someone must make money off this or it would simply fizzle out.
WWF Davidson makes well over 500,000 a year. Wonder what his carbon foot print is if you worry about such a thing. Wonder if he worries about the 1.5 billion with little or no electricity.how about the over 3 billion who cook over ding and wood fires devoping lung desease which millions die from. So Davidson what is your lifestyle running a multi billion multinational corporation while denigning others a decent quality of life. You hypocrite.
Counting all the Lights in the House ,I don’t come up with 2500 Watt but one Electric Heater in the Living Room is 2500 Watt. Turn off the Lights turn up the Heat?
Hydro’s Business is selling Power, nothing else, nothing less! No Sales, no Income, no Jobs.
Bob Gammer said we supposedly saved 136 MW of power but what he left out was our total load for the province was about 8,000,000,000 mw so a savings of .017%. WOW. Then power was back up again. A major portion of the world cannot do that.
Notice how he said LED bulbs and left out mercury lights such as CFL’s
Remember when hydro went around and installed free CFL’s and now they are shown to be dangerous. I wonder if Hydro will step up and replace those CFL’s they installed with LED’s. Could be a lawsuit in the making.
The interresting question would be: How much did hydro cut back generating power at that time, I bet you non
Seamut, you have it right!
I suppose that for tonight we will have to light a few candles – a petro product, no less! And we shall turn off the TV’s, our computers – but wait, if we turn off the computers we will not be able to see the other dark places. Oh, what a pleasure it will be to sit down with our partners (if we have any) to savour our favorite wine and do other fund things in the dark. But we can do that anyway – we can just adjust our incandescent light bulbs.
Oh, and I will put another log or three on the fire and add to that awful polluted air that so many belly ache about.
Somehow, I think there are too many contractions in this Save the Earth theme.
Earth Hour… just another thing to bellyache and complain about, it would seem.
Bc Bob excess power is not generated, only that being used. If load increases or decreases generation ramps up or down to match to keep frequency constant.
I guess I didn,t make my point well,if there is a reduction in useage during earth hour ,it should show up in reduction of power generated at that time
Peeps: “Earth Hour… just another thing to bellyache and complain about, it would seem.”
I agree. This should be given the attention it deserves… which is none.
Like I said before, I sure hope the folks in Nova Scotia get their power restored after that monstrous snow storm in time to celebrate Earth Hour. Baaaah. Baaaaah! Most mindless sheep with their iPads.
Why are people so irritated by this simple awareness campaign, hardly a day goes by where some group doesn’t attempt to bring an issue forward. If during this one single hour your turn off an unnecessary light in your home then it was as success. I’m sure there are people that will take this quite seriously and go dark and quiet for the hour, I’ll just shut off the light in my daughters room that seems to have a “on only” switch…kids:)
Sine Nomine, you state that we can’t store electricity. Actually, we kinda sorta can!
Williston Lake behind the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and Dinosaur Lake, behind the Peace Canyon Dam and all other hydroelectic dams are nothing more that great big batteries storing massive amounts of kinetic energy. Need electricity, open up a turbine, need more electricity, open another!
Well, teaching children to be more mindful with their habits (like switching off the light when they leave their room) can pay off little by little in the long run.
Many older folks of course think there isn’t anything new worthwhile to add to their great wisdom, so they will just see it as a joke and useless.
Pg the article opens about climate change not defining what he means but which has morphed into man caused climate ignoring natural causes. There is no proof of man affecting overall climate dispute hundreds of billions spent. This is money taken away from useful pressing environmental issues.
I wonder how many air miles have been racked up by our local climate researchers jetting off to exotic locations all over the world in the guise of saving us. Do they get to keep those travel points for more travel?
We can’t store electricity? Really? Facepalm!
I think there is something wrong with that banner! Earth hour is when we are supposed to turn everything off for that hour. But the banner says ” Are you ready to use your power?” Oops!
Well I didn’t get home in time to do laundry but I did idle the truck for the hour while waiting to go home :)
Turned off all the lights, the TV, computer laptops, and game systems,lit some candles, and played that snakes and ladders board game with my family. :-)
Candles burn homes down. Better off using battery powered lights. Use rechargeable batteries though so when earth hour ends you can recharge them.
After reading peeps “adventure” tonight in saving the planet, words fail me.
Why just do it for an hour?
NoWay “Why just do it for an hour?” Have you never played snakes and ladders? They call it a bored game for a reason.
People#1 did you play the game in a mud hut with dung for cooking popcorn, yummy.
its always earth hour in North korea, might be what peeps is looking for.
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