In defense of Earth Hour (Part Two. Of Three)

My last post began with me talking about how you can take some climate action today, with millions around the globe, by participating in Earth Hour.

Even though I participated, I used to be an Earth Hour detractor, when talking about it in terms of effective climate action. I didn’t think it fit the bill as the thing to do (for several of the reasons I list in part one), mainly because I want policy + regulatory change, the likes you have never seen, yesterday. Voluntary measures and awareness building exercises are something I regularly poo poo, because their demonstrated lack of effectiveness.

It is not that I now suddenly think that Earth Hour is the be all and end all of climate action; it is that I think our critical powers are best used in other arenas rather than attacking the success of this massive event. We need to learn from it, and use the demonstrated support for climate action that it gives us to get more REAL action.

We need more wins, in the environmental movement, and we really need to create a culture of success and innovation, a culture that embraces trying things out and changing them when they aren’t serving our purposes, and figuring out how to translate the good parts of our efforts into greater action that will achieve what is necessary. Whoa – I’m getting really abstract – are you still with me?

Side note: the environmental movement, filled with wonderful people doing very important work, can sometimes be quite lame, and will spend too much time misdirecting its anger internally, rather than taking a collective win and building on it. I think this attitude is corrosive and need to be addressed. The substance of that is for another series of posts, so let me get on with this one.

Here’s why I think Earth Hour is successful – because it gets millions of people, iconic buildings + structures, organizations, businesses, and governments participating in this singular event, and it has been able to replicate and build on this each year. My newspapers, Facebook feed, Twitter feed, and email is full with announcements of participation, requests to participate, and statements of participation from more groups, regions, and individuals in Earth Hour that you can imagine.  One has to pay attention when an event reaches this level – and if I am, that means others are too.

Earth Hour, oddly enough, shines more light on the need for climate action, than any other singular regular event than I can think of. It has even garnered more attention for climate in three years than the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the world’s collective policy process answer to the climate challenge) has in its 15 year existence.

As I said before, climate change is a complex problem (not just complicated, like mere rocket science is), which means that when we make changes, we don’t always know if we will have a successful outcome. It is kind of like raising children (parents will relate to this) – you do your best at raising them and teaching them good values – but at the end of the day, they are their own people, and it is hard to say all the factors that ensured a good outcome (and certainly not all children are good, but several have good parents nonetheless). There is no silver bullet to raising a good kid; there is no silver bullet to solving the climate crisis.

What this means is that it will do us well to remember that every action we take with respect to climate change will have limits (the UN can’t make any one country enforce Kyoto, Earth Hour can’t either). Those grounds alone are not a good enough reason not to support successful events that raise awareness AND demonstrate a demand for action. Earth Hour, done right and more strategically as it grows (and for those who want an activist challenge, here it is) needs to be used to put massive pressure on national and local governments to DO more. The people are calling.

People need to DO things in order to feel like they are influencing meaningful change, and the more they see others doing those same things, the more likely they are to do more things that support their original effort. There is a difference between changing all the light bulbs in your home to compact fluorescents or light emitting diodes (LEDs), and joining millions around the globe in turning your lights off and gaining publicity as a part of a well organized effort to send a singular message on climate change.

Earth Hour does the latter.

Can you think of another event that does that? (I’m trying to – really. So send me your suggestions). Earth Hour does not say that it is an event designed to get policy or regulation X enacted – it is a global call for real action on climate change, with an easy way for people to make their voice visible). Will millions making the call. It is up to us to take the voice of those millions and translate it into the necessary policy, regulatory, and societal shifts needed.

I have to go participate – and the Mayor of Whistler, Ken Melamed, was in the office turning off all the phantom power sources he could in Municipal Hall. Yes, the Mayor.

(I need a third post on this to address Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s concerns, and why I don’t think Earth Hour is the easy way out).

Tagged as: Climate Change, energy, sustainability