Earth Hour Update

We did it. We turned out all of the lights in the house for one hour Saturday night between 8 and 9pm. We also turned off the tv and the gaming systems. It meant the boys missed the first hour of the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards which they had been looking forward to, but it's Nick - they'll rerun it a million times this week.

We lit a bunch of candles in the room we call The Internet Cafe - it's a small room off of our kitchen with the boys' computer and a table for them to do their homework. It's also a really great place just to sit in the morning and have coffee - hence the room's name. We pulled out Monopoly and played by candlelight. By the end of the hour my eight year old was getting a little bored and my husband was having trouble reading by candlelight so we ended the game. My five year old, however, loved it and said it was the best part of his day.

I don't know anyone else who participated in Earth Hour, but apparently communities all across the country participated. Next year, I plan to help organize my community to participate. 

I couldn't find much news about the results of Earth Hour in the U.S. (not surprising), but here are some inspiring news articles from around the globe:

Chicago kept 840,000 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

In Canada, there were significant savings in energy, including an 8.7% reduction in Toronto.

In Manilla, Earth Hour was hailed a huge success as power companies saw a huge dent in consumption.

Melbourne had an impressive 10.1% drop in energy usage.

This is only Earth Hour's second year. The number of participants this year increased by the millions from last year. Let's hope that next year the increase is even greater.