Did YOU Turn Your Lights Out?

Of course you did . . . right?  And now you're wondering what to do next?  Why not commit to an hour of world changing, earth saving action every day between now and Earth Day on April 22nd - that's 26 days ... 26 hours of making a difference!  Imagine what you'll achieve!!

Need some inspiration?  Here's 26 ideas to help get you started:

1. Go for a walk
   Get to know your neighbourhood, get some exercise and give your car a rest!
2. Cook up a storm
   Get together with a few friends and fill your freezers with delectable dinners and tasty snacks.  Its fun, its real food - and it will save you money and make eating in easier than take-out!
3. Attend a Council meeting
   Find out what the issues are in your community.  Attend local government meetings.  Have your say.  Get involved!
4. Plant something
   It can be basil on the windowsill, tomatoes in the patio, a tree in the backyard or a glorious edible landscape.  Join a Community Garden (or start one), engage in guerrilla gardening, get some dirt under your fingernails and enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature!
5. Play board games
   Turn of the TV and have a night in with the family.  Board games are fun and teach kids to take turns, to count, to strategise, and to win (and lose) with grace - among other things.
6. Shop local
   Have yourself a local meal - with nothing on the plate that comes from further away than 100 miles.  Invite your friends and neighbours and help spread the word about the great food producers you have on your doorstep.
7. Volunteer
   Donate an hour or two of your time to a good cause.
8. Clean Up
   Take a walk around your neighbourhood picking up litter, or clean up your favourite spot in nature.
9. Read Aloud
   "When parents take time to read aloud, children are touched not only by the stories, but also by their parent's love" Calm and Compassionate Children by Susan Usha Dermond
   And you don't have to stop just because your kids can read for themselves.  Some of my most vivid and comforting childhood memories are of my father reading to me as a 'big kid'.
10. Make Do
    Do you really need new?  Or will what you have already do the trick?  Can you borrow from a friend or neighbour?  Can you repurpose something else to do the job?  Making do isn't just about doing without or being frugal, its creative too!
11. Pay AttentionMake a point of noticing the good things that happen in your day, share them with your loved ones and encourage them to do the same.  Keep an eye out for the beautiful, the unexpected, the inspirational, those little things its so easy to miss as we go about our busy lives.
    "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."- Albert Einstein
12. Go Without
    Try 26 days without buying anything new, or without buying any chocolate/coffee/shoes . . . and use the savings to help pay off any debts or donate it to a cause that moves you.
13. Give
    Give something away every day between now and Earth Day.  Make a point of being generous.
    
14. Bring Your Own
    Take your lunch to work each day.  Take a reusable coffee cup for your morning coffee on the way to work.  Make sure you have reusable cutlery in your drawer at work so you can say no to plastic stuff if you get a take-out lunch . . .
15. Get Rid of Clutter
    Clear out your closets and cupboards of things you no longer need - hold a garage sale, list your goodies on FreeCycle, hold a swap party or donate them to charity.
16. Be Prepared
    Put together a 'going green kit' stocked with reusable grocery bags, a BYO lunch kit, Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs, a water bottle, a travelling coffee mug, a selection of green cleaning products . .
17. Start Composting
    You don't have to have a big back yard to be able to compost your food waste.  A Bokashi system can fit under your bench, or you could set up a worm farm on your patio.  And if you don't have room for much of a garden you can always donate the results to your local community garden or share it with your neighbours. 
18. Build a Community
    Invite your neighbours over for a board games extravaganza, organise a street party, play charades, start a food co-op, have dinner with friends.  Connecting with others is good for the soul!
19. Watch a Movie
    Get inspired, get outraged, get informed.  Invite your friends around to watch a documentary about an issue that you are passionate about or that you feel you need to know more about.  It could be coffee, dolphins, capitalism or sustainable living . . .
20. On Yer Bike
    Ditch your car and bike to work. 
21. Smile
    Make a point of smiling at people.  Even when you don't feel like it.  Especially when you don't feel like it!!
22. Swap Your Old Books
    Update your library with a book swap.  You can do it online, or organise your own neighbourhood book swap.
23. Make It Yourself
    Make your own jam, knit your own socks, bake your own bread . . . pick a project and perfect a new skill over the next 26 days.
24. Help Someone
    Mow your neighbour's lawn, share your umbrella, look after your sisters kids for an hour.  Go out of your way to lend a hand every day for the next 26 days.
25. Do It By Hand
    Do you really need a machine to do that?  Get out your shovel to clear the snow from you driveway, use a rake to tidy up the autumn leaves in your back yard, try opening the cans with a manual can opener, get out of your chair to change the channel.  There are gadgets for everything - and sure they can make life easier, but they use power and make us less active.  How much technology do we really need to live happy, productive lives?
26. Spread the Word
    Tell as many people as you can reach what you are doing to change the world between now and Earth Day.  Share your actions in the comments below, on your blog, with your work colleagues, family, neighbours, the guy next to you on the bus . . . Who knows what movement you will inspire :)

Earth Hour: Media Hype or Effective Awareness Building?

Image via Wikipedia

I enjoyed my Earth Hour at home with a warm bath and some pleasant conversation with my husband. It was surprisingly relaxing to spend an evening without lights, tv or computer, but did it really make a difference?

In the long run, spending an hour in the dark once a year is unlikely to significantly reduce my carbon footprint, or impact climate change in a meaningful way. So does this mean its all just media hype?

Of course not! Earth Hour is about building awareness about climate change and how each of us can make choices that can help to reduce our impact on the planet. Its about how collectively we are powerful. Its about making us think about the things we do.

Earth Hour was a reminder for me about how much I take for granted. Lights that turn on at the flick of a switch, television, my computer, constant hot water, a hot drink in minutes, smoke free cooking (well most of the time!) . . .

For a quarter of humanity this is sheer luxury. Some 1.6 billion people live without electricity. In developing countries some 2.5 billion people are forced to rely on wood, charcoal and animal dung to meet their energy needs for cooking. Indoor air pollution resulting from the use of solid fuels claims the lives of 1.5 million people each year, more than half of them below the age of five: that is 4000 deaths a day.

Earth Hour made me think about the way my family and I consume resources as we go about our daily lives. There is a huge global disparity between the haves and the have-nots:

The 12 percent of the world’s population that lives in North America and Western Europe accounts for 60 percent of private consumption spending, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 3.2 percent (The State of Consumption)

By choosing to consume less - whether it be electricity, chocolate bars or petrol - we do something to even things up. By choosing to consume less and donating even a portion of the savings we make to charities that address global poverty we are doing even more.

What did Earth Hour mean to you?

Take the Earth Hour to Earth Day Challenge

The cool folk at Cool People Care have issued the Earth Hour to Earth Day Challenge. Between Earth Hour on March 28th and Earth Day on April 22nd they're challenging us to do one thing each day that educates someone else as to the very green changes they could make in their life.

Are you up for it?

If you are I want to know. Leave me a comment and tell me what you're doing so I can help spread the word. I'll be posting my EH2ED update every day from the 28th March to 22nd April.

If you're stuck for ideas Cool People Care have a few to get you started:

• Post on your blog what you're doing to make it from Earth Hour to Earth Day
• Send a tweet to your followers that includes a link to an informative article about climate change. (Follow me on Twitter here)
  
• Join a Facebook eco-conscious cause or group each day, or use some of the great eco-conscious Facebook applications.
  
• Send daily text messages to your friends to reduce, reuse or recycle
• Upload pictures of the earth's beauty to your Flickr account
• Tell the world via YouTube about an environmental cause you care about
• Change your email signature, sending people to an informative Web site
  

What will YOU be doing?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Show Your Support for Decisive Action on Climate Change: Earth Hour 2009 (twilightearth.com)
• 3 Things You Can Do as We Count Down to Earth Hour 2009 (planetsave.com)

Earth Hour coming to Southland

Image via Wikipedia

Its Earth Hour 2009 at 8:30pm on Saturday, March 28. An hour to turn out the lights and send a message that people worldwide are ready to work together and fight global warming.

Have you signed up for Earth Hour 2009?

I am disappointed to notice that in New Zealand, Earth Hour seems to have been embraced only by local Councils from Christchurch north.

Fortunately for Southland, its not all bad. Although our local councils might not care about Climate Change (the Gore District Council doesn't even provide adequate recycling facilities and feels curbside recycling is too expensive - feel free to contact them here and let them know what you think about that!!), the Eastern Southland Sustainable Living Group is in the throws of putting something together for the night. I will keep you posted!!