Earth Hour - What did you do?

Saturday 28th March marked Earth Hour, where many of us switched off our TV, lights and computers for an hour between 8.30pm and 9.30pm.

So did you do it? And if so, how did you find it? Was it a symbol of hope, sending a message to the world or was it a pointless lip-service exercise for those who want to appear green without actually doing anything?

We asked people what they did and what they thought.

‘We did it. Although I must confess here and now that I checked the TV schedule and changed my Earth Hour to 8.15-9.15pm so I could watch CSINY. Anyway, we lit some candles, turned off the TV, the lights and the computers and sat and played Trivial Pursuit by candlelight.

‘And we had an absolute ball. I haven't laughed so much in ages. Have you any idea how difficult it is to tell the difference between green and blue or pink and orange cheeses by candlelight without dripping wax all over the board? So yes, we saved an hour's worth of electricity. But also we spent time together as a family. As anyone with teenogres will tell you, all of you doing something together and enjoying it is a rare thing indeed. And it made me think about how families used to spend their evenings in the days before TV, computers, Facebook and Twitter. It also tied in very well with this month's newsletter theme of looking backwards to move forward.'
Jo, Dover

‘We personally just turned off our lights - not much difference to usual though really as we rarely have lights on in an evening anyway. The kids did feel like they were doing something to help though by keeping their bedroom lights off for an hour.'
Gail, West Midlands

‘We turned off all the lights and the heat and hot water for an hour - we were in our sitting room with a coal fire (!) and we did watch Robin Hood as recorded earlier, which we know was cheating but we had time to watch it then and would have used the electricity later. Unfortunately our porch light is not working so we could not turn that off for an hour like we did last year. I don't know if anyone else in the road did anything or noticed that we had no lights on!'
Caroline, London

‘It made me realise that, despite thinking we are fairly careful, we
have an awful lot of things on all the time - the heating system timer, gas cooker clock/ignition, alarm clock, telephones, adsl router, not to mention the fridge and freezer.

‘Now some of these we can't do anything about, such as the heating clock, but it's definitely time to look at how I use the freezers and make sure that as we're eating our way through last year's produce I empty the little freezer into the fridge freezer and turn the little one off for a while. I'll also try to remember to turn the router off overnight and think about getting extra extensions installed around the house so that I don't need cordless phones.'
Tanya, Stratford

‘If it helps I knew nothing about it...despite me being interested in all things green. Not very well advertised as far as I can see.'
Portia, East Sussex

‘I participated for the first time this year mainly because someone else sent me an email on Friday asking me if I'd heard about it. So I made an effort to turn things off yesterday and texted her to let her know I had as a bit of encouragement for her to do the same. I'd be unconvinced that it really makes a huge difference but I think for some people it's a starting point and a talking point and that's what's important.

‘People like my older sister would be able to go for something like the gimmick of turning everything off for an hour (I obviously missed the point that it was lights and thought it was no electricity), it's not too long a time but would possibly make her two teenage daughters and hubby think about how much electricity they're using. They have the kind of house where the lights are on in every room most of the time, at least two, and often three, televisions will be on the go and at least two computers on all the time. Even if there's only one person in or no-one at home. And the point is that lots of people seem to enjoy it - well, what's not to enjoy when we know we can turn everything back on at the end of it?'
Jean, Dusseldorf

‘Both last year and this year we had a concert organised round Earth Hour, with an acoustic set from 8.30pm to 9.30pm and candlelit throughout the evening. Sell out attendance, great atmosphere.'
Biff Vernon, Transition Town Louth, http://www.transitiontownlouth.org.uk

‘I think it was good to raise awareness, but for me an hour is not enough. Caring for the earth is a way of life, it goes much deeper than the token hour and affects everything I do - how I garden in harmony with nature, what I buy, or don't buy, how I clean, it is part of my spirituality.'
Zephyr, Peasmarsh, nr Rye, E Sussex

‘Wouldn't it be great if we had an hour a month, to start, then progressing to an hour a week, then a day? Think of the difference it could make. The county next to us (Powys) has a lot of the street lights switched off at a set time every night. I think that's a great idea.

‘We switched off everything except the fridge and freezer and the computer upstairs which my daughter needed for work. We all sat in the candlelight though. We were the only ones in our street that took part. Sad.'
Fiona, South Wales

‘Presumably there is nothing stopping you from doing this every day if you so choose. You don't have to wait for everyone else to join in.'
Billy, Glastonbury.

‘As a way of raising awareness about how much electricity we use unnecessarily, and how much we take it for granted, I think Earth Hour is a great initiative. I'm less sure about the motivation of the large organisations that took part. If they are so keen for electricity usage to be cut, why did they turn the lights back on at the end of the hour?'
Judy, Dorset

top 2 photos (c) Sabrina Willekens 2009