Tonight at 8:30 p.m. MY time, I will observe Earth Hour 2023.
According to World Wildlife Fund:
Started by WWF and partners as a symbolic lights-out event in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour is now one of the world's largest grassroots movements for the environment. By switching off your lights on March 25 at 8:30pm, you will join millions of others in 190 countries in support of our planet.
I have supported Earth Hour for several years. In fact, I've participated since 2013.
This worthy cause, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is more
than just turning off lights. It's about saving our planet. And I am not alone. My friend Patty who no longer blogs at Magpie's Nest, but can be found on Instagram, has
participated more years than I, and she's the one who got me involved
in this worthy cause I've lived, but never knew existed.
I say I've lived it, and I'll prove a few of the ways I do so each day.
1. I heat only the rooms I'm using in the winter, and cool only my
office in the summer, even though I have central heat and air.
2. I don't turn lights on in a room unless I'm taking a photograph. I
know my home, and have no trouble navigating in a dark house.
3. I don't own a cell phone, so there are no chargers to unplug.
4. I don't own a dishwasher (much to my displeasure when I have company,
I might add), so I keep my water heater on a very low setting.
5. I wash all my clothes in cold water only. The hot water spigot on my
washer is not even turned on. And yes, my clothes come clean because I
check each article of clothing, and pre-treat, if there's a stain.
6. If I need added heat, I snuggle with Bleubeard and Squiggles who are more than willing to spend added time with me.
7. It's no secret I'm a coffee drinker, but as soon as the coffee is
brewed, I shut the coffee maker off. No sense leaving the heat on, when
I don't mind if my coffee gets cold. And company can always use the
microwave, if they need their coffee scalding.
What will you commit to this year to help reduce waste on the planet.
There are many ways you can get involved, but even if you don't have
time to volunteer for outside events, I've shown you several ways you
can help save our planet without ever leaving your home.
So what about beyond Earth Hour? I'm an artist, so I'll be making art
that uses recycled, reused, repurposed, and/or recovered items, as well as planet friendly paint during
the month of April leading up to Earth Day, which, in my world is
bEARTHday. I hope this helps you rethink your art, too. It only lasts an hour, so surely you can do that!
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12 thoughtful remarks:
And a very Happy bEARTHday to you. We also only wash in cold weather, and keep our heating and our cooling to a minimum. We had solar panels (and a battery) installed last year and try and do things which use lots of power like the washing/vaccumming etc when the sun is shining.
First off: Happy bEARTHday to you, dear Elizabeth - may your wishes come true, to a happy, healthy funny, creative new year in your life!
We have only LED lights, a Miele washing machine that is very effective. I dry the clothes on a drying rack. I am the dishwasher, we have no vacuum cleaner but a swiffer, induction field for cooking, we heat only minimal but all rooms. My PIL once wanted to save money and turned the heating completedly off in two rooms... and got mold they had to have removed for quite some money...
I would wish all the public places/statues etc no one hardly looks at anyways would have the lights switched off after 8pm.
You have some good ideas there. I wish more people would give up their cars and use bikes or public transport. I know it's not possible for those with distances to travel, but here it would be a possibility for many people. Have a great weekend, hugs, Valerie
We are wasteful in some ways, but in others we are not. For example, we usually plan our driving trips for errands. If we have to go to the post office , store, appointments, etc., we plan it for one day, and map it out, so we are not going back and forth. I wash our clothes in cold water, it is better for the clothes and makes them last longer; the soap gets them clean. We do have a dishwasher, but usually we wash by hand since there are only two of us. But you are right, when we have our family at Christmas we are thankful for our dishwasher! And in the daytime, we have our blinds open so we don’t need lights on. Love the natural light coming in. We close off vents in rooms we are not I . We leave our thermostat at 68 in the Winter and 74 in the Summer. So we are good in some areas and bad in others, but we do what we can. I hope I didn’t wear you out Thursday! I shouldn’t have stayed so long. 😀
I'm sure I've read about this before but I don't remember it. It's a great idea. I think most of us have had to be more conservative with rising costs. We use a timer thermostat so that our house is cooler at night than during the day (and when it's cold, as you know, we run our woodstove where we use sawdust bricks-biobricks- which saves trees and helps with using us sawdust created at woodworking factories). We have never heated our upstairs.You do know a dishwasher uses less water than washing an equal amount of dishes in the sink, and the dishwasher creates its own hot water when its using it, but we run it when its full. And other things which I don't need to go on about because I am sure you get the point. And by the way, thank you for explaining the rope in the Spice Merchant for me. I couldn't tell it was a rope, but now I can see it. It was just a tan line in the photos before. Have a great Saturday and Earth Hour too. hugs-Erika
We turn lights off when we leave a room. The thermostat is set at 68. If we need a bit of heat or cooling in a particular room, we run the mini-split. The biggest thing we did was to install solar panels. During the day, the solar panels supply electricity to the house. If we make more electricity than we use, the electric company buys the electricity from us so we become a mini-power plant. We installed a solar battery as a backup, at night, the solar battery powers the house unless there's a power outage and then the battery supplies power to the house.
We don't turn on lights unless we actually need them, we keep our heat on 68 (our resources say it's better to leave it than turn it on and off and up and down), I rarely use hot water for clothes washing, we don't run our dishwasher (ours heats its own water) because we so rarely use enough dishes to warrant using it before we need those dishes again but do keep our hot water high enough to provide the heat recommended for washing them by hand, I don't bathe daily, my son does many of our errands for us on foot, I rarely buy "new" clothes but when I do they come to me from a thrift store (I'm still wearing clothes from decades ago), we kept our last car until it just couldn't be fixed even with jerry-rigged parts and then bought something used and small with good gas mileage... I'm unwilling to drink cold coffee and don't like it microwaved but a coffee cozy does wonders. I don't eat much meat, we rarely eat out... We could do more, so much more. I admire your commitment.
Well, after saying that we've turned off the central unit lol Some times of year we need it on at night so the upstairs gets cool enough to sleep but not at all during the daytime. I've opened up the house.
Good for you!
Happy Earth Hour!
Thank you thank you thank you! If more people were like you... Pixie sends her love
I've had a good catch up as its been a while since I last called by, needless to say I've enjoyed my visit. Most of us these days look to ways of saving our costs at home I just wish everyone would pause and take note of how they use these resources and the side effects to out planet they could cause over time
Yvonne xx
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