Organized by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Earth Hour is a global movement encouraging people, households, businesses and communities at large to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour as a literal and symbolic action against climate change and to demonstrate a commitment to protect and preserve the planet.
Today's the day! In 2017, on Saturday, March 25th, Earth Hour takes place from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm (or beyond) local time and like previous years, hundreds of millions of people around the world will switch off their lights in solidarity for what WWF claims is the world's largest voluntary action.
Although conservation in and of itself is a great idea, the 'dark side' of this movement is that we as a collective are permitted a pseudo-environmental, do-gooder pick-me-up from 60+ minutes without all that accountability of committing to real tangibly effective lifestyle changes. Meanwhile, involved governments and businesses get to appease masses as attention is deflected from the reality of their own contributions to the global climate and ecological crisis.
Reconnecting with Nature is a strong passion and purpose for me but I often equate these kinds of initiatives in the same category as Valentine's Day. Yes, it's a commercial holiday that can put excessive societal pressures on non-coupled people, but I'm also a major advocate for all things that promote Love. So, if our calendar is marked with a date that reminds us to bring our sweetie flowers, so be it.
Likewise, Earth Hour (and Earth Day) calls awareness to our individual and communal environmental footprints, demonstrating that small actions can have significant impacts. The problem is when we limit certain behaviors to their designated holiday and thus feel exempt from their reverence the remainder of the year.
Studies have shown that in our modern society we (subconsciously or not) base our decisions on a sort of morality back account, where we entitle ourselves to a degree of unfavorable behavior by means of all the presumed good deeds we credit ourselves, i.e. an instinctive "I turned my lights off for Earth Hour last week so I deserve this 30-minute shower or plastic bag at the market".
The bottom line is, Earth Day is Every Day. Earth Hour is Every Hour, and we can let these specialized days serve as a reminder and opportunity to upgrade our current lifestyles and habits.
So, do I participate in Earth Hour? Yes. But I'll also continue to turn off non-essential lights, conserve water, compost, carry reusable shopping bags and water bottles, boycott plastics, patron my local farmer's market, travel by foot (amap) and refine towards a zero-waste lifestyle tomorrow and onward.
