At its core, Earth Hour is about more than just turning off your lights for one hour each year. It is built on the foundation that one person can make a difference and that collective small acts can have an phenomenal global impact. While the 1 hour is important and brings people together as they work towards the collective good, we must not forget that these actions need to be carried forward into our day to day lives. Every hour needs to be like Earth Hour.
Start small by unplugging one night each week. Keep the TV off and put your computer and smart phones aside. Find ways to spend your time disconnected. Read a book, play a board game, sit and talk with someone special. We spend far too much time immersed in our online lives or watching fake shows unfold on the screen and not enough time being present in our actual lives. Yes, I understand there is irony involved here as I am writing this post and you are reading it. Balance, my friends. Balance. Once you have mastered one night, increase it to two. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Know Your Home
Your home is silently leaking energy causing you to waste the resources required to make that energy. There are simple ways to detect leaks in your home and fix them to ensure the resources you are consuming are being put to good use.
Rethink Your Day to Day
Look for opportunities to cut electricity out of your daily life. It can be as simple as finding new ways to work out that don't rely on electricity or using wool dryer balls to reduce drying time when doing your laundry. A few years ago I realized that there was several things that I was doing that were using energy unnecessarily. Simple things, things I had never really thoughts twice about and changing my behavior with these adds up to some great energy savings.
Lights Off
Turn your lights off when you leave a room. Simple right? Apparently not so much. In the majority of homes there are lights on in rooms that aren't being used and aren't for personal security reasons. One of the best feature in our home is motion sensors in key areas that we would probably forget to always turn off the light. Main hallways, closets, pantries are all great areas to add these sensors to ensure that your lights turn off when you aren't in the area.
Be A Good Example
Kids are curious by nature, which means they are always watching us. They look up to us and if they are really crazy, they want to be just like us. Help in raising the next generation of environmentalists by showing them the simplest ways to reduce their impact on the environment. We reward our kids for brushing their teeth and using the potty so why not reward them for turning off the lights.
How do you spend Earth Hour and what do you carry over to every day actions?
Related Posts - Check them Out
Teaching Kids to Sort Waste
More Than Earth Day
Raising Green Kids
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I love the idea of re-think your day to use electricity. My favorite is just enjoying outside--if it would just warm up.
ReplyDeleteThis winter has been so cold that it has been hard to be outside at all!
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