BellaOnline Forums News and Politics Animal Life Celebrate Earth Hour!

It is 630PM in Arizona and Earth Hour has just begun on the east coast of the United States.

The light inside the house grows darker than outside but I am keeping lights off. It is 92F (33C) degrees outside. I have all the windows open in the house. Fortunately, we are having a clear, breezy day. Typically with wind comes dust storms in the desert, more so the past 2 years. Even with all of the windows open, the house temperature is at 90F (30C) degrees. However, I am not going to turn on the A/C. There is enough clean air movement � sooo thankful � that it is unnecessary.

As I chop up the vegetables for tonight�s Quesadillas my mind decided to learn from the experience. I realized I needed to do this well in advance and have my station prepped while there was still natural light. That led to another realization. What was the last thing I wanted to do while natural light was still available? The answer really surprised me. I wanted to sterilize countertops and workstations with vinegar.

My brain pondered a question. �What if there was no electricity?� I started to view life accordingly. All of the vegetables and herbs used for dinner would have needed to come from my garden and not the refrigerator. I ran with the thought and asked myself what is the last thing I would do with electricity? Again, the answer surprised me! It was sterilize my dirty dishes in the dishwasher. While I cleaned and prepped for dinner, my eye caught the faint flickering of the landscape solar lights starting their gentle illumination for the evening.

I live in an area that has nothing for light pollution and without a full moon, it is �can�t see your hand in front of your face dark� outside. I find that I am particularly grateful for having these lights during Earth Hour and it makes me want to pursue more aggressively the solar power option. For if electricity did fall by the wayside I would still have access to the creature comforts of modern living without harming the planet.

This has already been an enlightening experience and it�s not even 830PM. I hope you will join me and power down for an hour today.

And the tallies are in!

A RECORD breaking 6,525 cities in 150 countries participated in Earth Hour in 2012! That is so out of this world awesome!

Thank you to all who participated. It was a much bigger eye opener than I was expecting - totally worth it!

Stop by and share your experiences. I'd love to hear about them. Until next 31 March - keep those lights on dim.

I celebrate our planet everyday so when Earth Hour arrives I do not participate so I do not sign the pledges for this. My dad is annoyed and my mom angry that I always close the lights of the rooms where noone is but I will continue doing this, not only does it help the environment it is also pointless to have a light on when noone is there.