Earth Hour: Reactions

This past Saturday, Kevin and I participated in a global event called "Earth Hour". For the uninitiated, the folks behind Earth Hour list this statement on their website:

"(Earth Hour) is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet."

I, personally, see no problem with making a statement (a global one at that) whereby through a worldwide effort, awareness about climate change and the many other environmental problems that loom ahead of us is created.

Climate change is real. Deforestation is real. Our daily consumer-driven lives are taking a pretty steep toll on the world around us. The list goes on and on and on...

In any case, it's clear that as a species, we need to take a step back and re-evaluate our role on this planet. Human beings are, undoubtedly, the cause of a majority of the environmental issues that face us today, and if our behaviour continues unchecked as it has in the past, the world of our children's children may very well be unrecognizable from the world we know today.

Call me a tree-hugging hippie, call me a cock-eyed optimist, call me a dreamer, call me whatever you want. I will never let the negativity of the majority of people around me get me down. I will continue changing all of my old tungsten light bulbs to a more eco-friendly variety, and turning off lights when I leave the room, and making eco-conscious, informed buying decisions about the cleaning products I use, and where my food comes from. I will continue recycling my water bottles and buying recycled paper products. I will continue using my Publix "green bags" in leu of plastic grocery bags. and I will never stop caring about what effects every one of my daily choices have on this planet we call home.

And now, for some differing points of view.

On Saturday night, I posted the following Facebook status in regards to my Earth Hour activities:

Colure Caulfield is going to eat dinner by candlelight tonight during Earth Hour with her husband :)

Simple enough, yes? Offensive? Not at all. One may even call it romantic.

The following is the response I received from the facebook internet world:

Davin Pavlas at 6:15pm March 28 EARTH HOUR IS DUMB AND YOU'RE DUMB

Christopher McCollum at 6:45pm March 28 Wtf? Why are you using candles when you have electricity available? Is it a date? :P

Megan Young Kaczmarek at 8:15pm March 28 We're trying to get the little man off to bed in time to get all the lights off.

Colure Caulfield at 9:41pm March 28 via Facebook Mobile Davin, YOU'RE dumb ;p You and your German anti-environmental ethics ;p heh. C - we used candles so as to NOT use electricity, thus the entire point of Earth Hour. One hour without using power! Megan - how'd that work out for you guys? Keviin and I agreed that it's no wonder people in the old days went to bed early! It's kinda hard to stay awake when it's dark!

Christopher McCollum at 10:07pm March 28 Did you turn off the main breaker in your fuse box? :P

Brian Potter at 10:49pm March 28 Earth hour is kind of like writing a ten dollar check to UNICEF right before you go spend 2000 dollars on a plasma TV...You know, just sayin'...

Jessie Floyd Fulks at 11:03pm March 28 It was actually a great excuse to spend a distraction-free amount of time with family. Chris actually wants to do it once a week now!

Colure Caulfield at 11:38pm March 28 via Facebook Mobile C- that we did not do, but all lights were off at least, as was the tv and such. Potter- ummm no, not really... ;p Jessie- it absolutely was! I totally agree :) That's a great idea!! We just might do that as well :)

The (mostly) negative response continued with another facebook status update of mine, later on in the evening:

Colure Caulfield had a lovely candlelit dinner with her husband and doesn't care if people think she's a tree-hugging hippie for observing Earth Hour ;p

Seems that my statement of not caring what others thought was simply fuel to the fire...

Jessie Floyd Fulks at 11:02pm March 28 Good for you, and yay for being tree-hugging hippies!

Davin Pavlas at 11:25pm March 28 No it's more like a superficial hippie OH BURN.

Colure Caulfield at 11:36pm March 28 via Facebook Mobile Thanks, Jessie! :) And Davin, it's actually not superficial at all! I got to spend a lovely interruption and distraction-free dinner with my husband, all while participating in a GLOBAL event in support of climate change awareness! :)

Davin Pavlas at 12:04am March 29 Building awareness is the lazy person's version of making a difference.

Colure Caulfield at 12:35am March 29 via Facebook Mobile Actually building awareness is the BEGINNING of making a difference.

Christopher McCollum at 3:54am March 29 Hate hippies.

Colure Caulfield at 10:19am March 29 via Facebook Mobile I was born and raised a hippie - it's in my blood!

Christopher McCollum at 12:23pm March 29 Ewwww. take a shower and shave your arm pits. And also, stop taking your dog into restaurants and bars, and then acting like you're not committing a major health violation!

Colure Caulfield at 12:29pm March 29 via Facebook Mobile I'll have you know I shower and shave on a very regular basis! And I don't bring Strider out into the public because he would certainly lickinate everyone to death!

Christopher McCollum at 12:42pm March 29 Hmm... I'm getting pretty good at this level of hate. I just listed four argument-proof reasons why I hate hippies, in two concise sentences. :P

Frank Blanco at 3:47pm March 29 hippie!

Colure Caulfield at 9:07am March 30 Yes yes yes I know, can't help it ;)

So while I did receive some positive response, there certainly is a lot of bile out there in regards to anyone attempting to "make a difference". I can't even tell you the number of facebook status updates and tweets via Twitter I saw from people proudly asserting that they would "turn on every single light in the house so as to counteract all of the Earth Hour activities out there" - I mean, seriously? Is your life really that sad and pathetic that you have to act out against people who are merely trying to do something positive in this world??

Today I noticed that a friend of mine on facebook wrote this note about his feelings towards Earth Hour. And while he makes some decent arguments (specifically, that there is no easy solution to the problems we face in our world today, and that for real change to occur, people are going to have to be willing to make some pretty major sacrifices in their day to day lives) I find that I am saddened by how quickly and easily people are willing to jump to the conclusion that they may as well shrug off the problems of the world that surround them because they don't think that even the smallest changes make a difference. They are too jaded and overwhelmed by the problems that face us, and so they say things like "So what?" and "I can't" and "Not me".

And you know my response to that note? Shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, considering my track record of responding to negativity with a positive, hopeful answer...

Colure Caulfield at 2:13pm March 30

While you make some good points, I think you ultimately may have missed the point of Earth Hour. At least as far as I can tell, Earth Hour wasn't actually created with the purpose of making an immediate, tangible difference with the environmental issues we face. The point of Earth Hour was to create *awareness* of the environmental issues that we face. To make a big enough statement to the government and to the rest of the world that people are *finally* taking global warming and a slew of other ecological problems ahead of us seriously, and that it is time to do something about it. Time to invest time, money, and resources to the research and development of alternative energy, time to re-evaluate not just fuel emissions standards but also our own living standards in general - where our food comes from, how it is grown, where our waste goes and what the long-term effects are that it has on our environment. Yes, it won't fix EVERYTHING wrong in the world. But it's a start.

And that's my point, in all of this. That's the reason I participate in events like "Earth Hour" and the reason why I try to do little things in my daily life that, while at first may seem insignificant, could eventually lead to greater change.

While we certainly can't expect to fix everything wrong with this world of ours, we can begin by taking baby steps in the right direction. Change has to start somewhere. Would it be so terrible if it started with us??