Earth Hour 2009

<<-Toronto Before Earth Hour - Click for Info

Ron and I spent most of last year's/our first Earth Hour strolling through our residential neighbourhood being impressed by the number of homes that had turned off their lights - the darkness inside being interrupted only occasionally by a flickering candle. We weren't the only ones out for a walk. It seemed a lot of people were. Everyone we met spoke to us as if the new-found darkness somehow made them feel safer, that even passing strangers were friends all at the same party. The favourite conversation topic of course was the darkness and the stars that could be seen in the skies above - a rare sight anytime in Toronto. But we also all wondered at a house that seemed to be making some sort of reverse statement, as not only were their lights on inside the house but there were many strands of lights hung outside lighting up their house like Christmas. Earth Hour of course is about making a statement. No one actually believes that shutting off lights around the world for just one hour once a year is going to stop global warming. Rather participating is a symbolic act - a collective statement that action is needed daily by each of us and our governments. That's why we decided to spend the symbolic event of Earth Hour 2009 taking pictures of a Toronto symbol - the CN Tower.

Normally the CN Tower is lit with coloured lights in the evening and March 28, 2009 was no exception. The pictures shown above left and below were both taken a few minutes before the start of Earth Hour. Note that both the CN Tower and the Rogers Centre are washed in a purplish light. The Rogers Centre (the domed stadium above formerly called the Skydome) and the Royal York Hotel (the lower building in the centre of the cluster of high-rises below) as well as other buildings have their names lit-up on signs at the top of the buildings. Most lights in the individual suites in the various high-rise towers already seemed to be off - perhaps like ours they had been turned off much earlier in the day in anticipation of the event. In fact Toronto Hydro reported that Toronto's average use of electricity was already down by 10% prior to the countdown at 8:30pm.

Toronto Skyline Pre-Earth Hour - click for larger view and more info

When 8:30pm ticked by the exterior lights on the CN tower and the dome shut off as well as various buildings' signs and it became much harder to pick out each building. The majority of the lights that remained on were the ones required for safety - like street lights and the small flashing lights to warn planes about the CN Tower and the crane spotlights on the buildings under construction. Also the camera's slow shutter speed captured the headlights and tail-lights of passing cars on the highways. From a distance it does indeed look like a much darker city and a statement of Toronto's desire to do something about global warming.

Earth Hour in Toronto - click for larger view and more info

In Ontario the power reduction during Earth Hour was reported at more than 6%. In Toronto it was almost twice last year's reduction at 15.1% - enough to power 300,000 homes. That is an impressive statement that we each can do something. And to me it is also a statement of hope - hope that something can be done!

But what happens if we take a closer look? If we look under the darkened dome of the Rogers Centre we would discover that the stadium was hosting a weekend-long motocross event. Perhaps that fact becomes even more ironic when it is learned that later that night when the races were over about 300 people had to evacuated from the dome and some of its attached venues due to carbon monoxide fumes.

It is good even honourable to shut off our lights and join in statements of solidarity against global warming. But we need to look closer - need to go beyond turning out our lights once a year. Ron and I drove downtown to get these images. Our excuse for not taking transit was all the gear we had to haul and our neighbourhood's lousy bus schedule. But really that is just an excuse. We could perhaps - even should have done better. We have been trying. Since I posted It's Not Easy Being Green! on this blog last year we have continued to try and reduce our carbon footprint. We have reduced our natural gas consumption by 25% over last year's by installing a new high-efficiency furnace and tankless hot-water heater in our home. We've also had most of our windows replaced by new energy efficient ones. No doubt there is still more that we can do without having to sit home in dark rooms - something that won't cost us much but will still let us enjoy our lives - like taking transit more and driving less.

So what's next for you? What are you personally going to do to reduce your carbon footprint and help in the fight against global warming? Let's make every hour a time to do something for the earth.

It's Not Easy Being Green!

Northern Leopard Frog
(SARA/COSEWIC lists as Special Concern/Endangered in some parts of Canada)

Or should I say, “it isn't easy to become green”? We (that’s Ron Erwin and I) are “trying” to become green or at least to be greener in everything we do – whether in our personal or business lives. But “living” itself really isn’t very environmentally friendly, and living in Canada with its cold northern climate pretty much means that the burning of fossil fuels will be required for heat from late September until at least late April - even here in Toronto. (Although this year you might remember from my Beach blog posting that it was still warm enough to sit on a beach in mid-October and we didn’t turn on our heat until around the 17^th. Maybe that’s even more proof – as if we needed any - of global warming?) At least we do turn down our gas furnace the recommended 5°C nightly or while we are away and to do so we don’t need a programmable thermostat (which just takes more energy to manufacture and run). But it looks like that Northern Leopard Frog above still expects more of us.

(Right: Male Green Frog)

Of course we do the basics: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We try not to buy what we don’t need and when we do need something we try to buy it locally with less packaging, and from green sources. This too is challenging and sometimes impossible as even the food stores within walking distance to our house pack many items, such as meats and even some vegetables on Styrofoam trays. At this time of year if we want more variety in our diet than just meat and potatoes then the food has to be trucked in from somewhere and that somewhere is probably very far away. Are hothouse tomatoes grown in Ontario more environmentally friendly than ones grown outside and trucked in from Mexico? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem we have much choice when it comes to food or at least not in mid-January.

(left: Bullfrog among lily pads)
So when we moved our website to a new host last week we were very happy that the chosen host company is a “certified green host” which means they purchase renewable energy certificates that offset the carbon emissions generated by all their business activities. For more information on what that means go to www.ronerwin.com and look for and click on the icon - (edit note 10/04/27 - this blog and Exposure: Ron's Ramblings have been moved to a different server with an unknown green status). Reading about our host being carbon neutral got us thinking more about the technology we use in the photography industry and our business’s carbon footprint. Digital images don’t require harsh chemicals to be developed like film but they do require electricity consuming computers. So on Monday we decided to cash in our GST windfall (thanks to Prime Minister Harper) and signed up to become bullfrogpowered.

This means we will be paying 3.4 - 3.9 cents more per kilowatt-hour for electricity for our home/office, but Bullfrog Power will inject green power equal to the amount we consume into the Ontario power grid. In Ontario the source of this green power is 20% wind generated and 80% from low-impact hydroelectric power. In Alberta they are doing better – 100% is wind generated and it only costs 2 cents per kWh (typically just 50 cents more per day than the usual sources for the average home).

Castle River Wind Farm near Pincher Creek, Alberta

This doesn’t mean that we’ll be drawing our power directly from a wind turbine (I wish!) in our neighbourhood. But it does mean that more clean energy will be generated on our behalf. Eventually with more homes and businesses signing up then more clean sources (maybe solar?) will be added, the price of Ontario’s green power will come down, and hopefully the non-green sources will no longer be required. We also hope our willingness to pay more for green power helps send a message to our government - to help push the Ontario government to finally close Ontario’s coal power plants as promised and replace them with something other than Nuclear Power. But it is also a message for the Federal Government. That rather than GST cuts that reward consumption and consumerism, we want our tax money to go toward solving the global warming problem. It was made very clear this week that our Federal government cannot be trusted to ensure the safety of Canada’s nuclear power plants with the firing of the head of the Nuclear Safety Commission just for doing her job.

(Above: Bullfrog Among Lily Pads)

Unfortunately our switch to Bullfrog Power does not happen until the next time our electrical meter is read in mid-March. In the meantime and even after the switch we will continue to try to further reduce our energy consumption and our carbon footprint by:

• Travelling and driving less. We will continue to take mass transit or walk whenever possible (I’m sure our bodies will thank us for the added exercise);
• Replacing incandescent light-bulbs. Ninety-nine percent of our incandescent light-bulbs have already been replaced with energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs. We hope to replace the remaining ones with even better LEDs perhaps from here.
• Remembering to bring our reusable shopping bags to the store more often. Better yet? Always!
• Pushing our neighbourhood’s grocers to stock more locally grown food and to wrap meat with paper rather than plastic and Styrofoam.
  
• Turning down the heat and stopping draughts. Today we decided to set the thermostat to 68F rather than 70F. I’ve got on an extra sweater right now but I’m hoping I eventually acclimatize to this small change. I also put some weather-stripping around the back screen door which amazingly enough stopped the wind howling around its edges. So I’m now inspired to look around the house for more gaps that can be stopped.
• Use big energy consuming appliances as little as possible. I’ll let my long hair air dry more often and use my blow-dryer less. Eighteen months ago we already stopped using our clothes-dryer. Instead we hang all our laundry to air dry. At this time of year we dry the clothes on racks inside the house. But in nicer weather we have a portable umbrella style clothes line. When needed we just insert the umbrella’s pole into the ground spike and open the umbrella. The ground spike has a cap to keep out rain when not in use. It can even be run right over with a lawn mower (preferably human powered not gas!). I understand that some communities don’t allow clotheslines as they think they are unsightly. The umbrella dryer may not be a work of art but I think these white sheets drying on a clothes line in Newfoundland are– don’t you?