I was really excited about Earth Hour this year. I’m a fan of all things that involve candlelight and helping the environment (especially when they’re as easy as switching off your lights for an hour) and I thought Cape Town would jump on the bandwagon.
In fact, I was so certain that Cape Town would jump on the bandwagon that I dragged my man from a friend’s braai to a lookout point so that we could see the Grand Switch-Off. We weren’t the only ones with this bright idea — Signal Hill, Cape Town’s premier lookout point which gives you a panoramic view of the city, was blocked off because there were so many cars lining its roads. And Table Mountain, where we found a spot, was full of people who’d made a special journey to see the city plunge into darkness at 8.30pm.
There was a really lovely atmosphere — a tangible excitement as people found parking spots, hopped out of their cars, set up video cameras and tucked into the baskets of snacks they’d brought along for the show. Here it is! I thought. A real Earth Hour.
8.25pm … 8.29pm … 8.30pm and the first building went dark. “Did you see that?” I asked my man excitedly. He had. Then the large red Absa light, a beacon for Capetonians living in the City Bowl, went out. Very cool. And then another building! And then? Nothing. 8.35pm … 8.39pm …. 8.41pm … and nothing. That was it. The rest of the city remained ablaze. Everyone waited around hopefully for another couple of minutes but it was obvious that that was the show. It had ended not with a bang but a whimper.
And so a whole heap of disgruntled earth lovers headed down the mountain and back to their dark homes. (Yes, I am well aware of the irony of using extra petrol and sitting in a traffic jam to get to a lookout point for an environmental “moment”. I had a little giggle when I saw a cluster of Earth Hour fans huddled under a streetlight looking out over the city and waiting for it to turn out its lights.)
Now, there are a number of reasons why Earth Hour was such an underwhelming sight. Most of the orange city lights are municipal and it must cost a lot to switch them on and off. Eskom probably begged them not to because of the resultant power surge. Also, even if individuals in their flats switched their lights off, there are those automated passageway lights that remain alight. And there’s the safety issue, of course. Hell, maybe some people forgot about it and only realised the next day.
Which is why my suggestion for next year is for the City of Cape Town to fire the Noon Gun or set off a few dozen fireworks from a high place, so that the whole city can tell that now it is Earth Hour, unplug and switch off, or else! A bit of extra awareness wouldn’t go astray, either.
What do you think might help?
(This blog was first published at www.blog.bridgetmcnulty.com)
It’s not much of a statement really (and after reading you drove up to see this, yes, I’ll admit to looking for the disclaimer – good job it was there). I’m pretty sure we had lights on in our house…but we were having a video game extravaganza family night (winner gets their own shiny dish of popcorn and everyone else has to grub around in the communal one) and no earth hour nonsense was getting in the way of that. We did turn most of the lights off though….sigh.
I care deeply about the environment, but think that “Earth Hour” is a ridiculous waste of time. It doesn’t matter how many people switch off their lights, recycle, drive hybrid cars, etc. etc. – as long as so many humans keep reproducing like rabbits, we’re doomed. I personally will never participate in Earth Hour or any such silliness because I have already made the ultimate contribution to the environment: I didn’t have children. The answer to the Environment Problem is screamingly obvious, but we daren’t broach this taboo subject. So our beautiful planet is doomed. Sorry, but logic hurts …
You took the words out of my mouth!!
I was so disappointed that I couldn’t bring myself to utter a word about it on my blog. The best the City could do was turn off the lights that show off the mountain at night. They should be off anyway!! No excuses, next year better be a decent show that Cape Town would like to save the world from climate change. The moon (our future home) doesn’t have nearly the kind of views that Cape Town does!
At least it wasn’t as bad as JHB. I went to the Earth Hour concert at Sandton square. While it was a lovely vibe, Sandton Square just didn’t come to the party. They didn’t switch off their outside lights, the library lights, shops in the square didn’t turn off their illuminated signs. As all the eager participants stood in the square holding candles waiting for darkness to fall we all felt incredibly cheated and would have prefered to be at home- in the dark!
I was on the other side, Plattekloof with a full panoramic view of the whole of Cape Town. It was totally pathetic. I think next Eskom, should just trip all power for an hour, we should be in complete darkness, I want to see the stars baby! If you are concerned about security, stay at home… This did not even happen while load shedding was going on, and it will make people realise how much they rely on electricity and appreciate it more.
@ CB: I too have not reproduced, but I don’t think that means I’ve done my bit for the world! You’re middle-class, right? So you’re using as much GHG as a family with four kids in rural South America. “Our beautiful planet is doomed,” indeed, if we don’t start changing our habits.
Earth Hour doesn’t achieve much in terms of reducing power use etc at the point when it happens. (And I happen to think the biggest silliness is having events and concerts around it – the Sandton concert is a bit like the commercialisation of Christmas.) BUT if you all registered for Earth Hour, you would have made a statement which can be used to stir the powers-that-be off their fat, GHG-producing butts. (Grin) We have to make it clear that we, the citizens of earth, care enough to take some action. Hey, maybe we’ll progress to boycotting their products or (what a thought!) voting them out of office!
I must say I too waited with bated breath in Durban (and I didn’t even think to climb up somewhere high like you – I just assumed I would be able to see everything go balck from where I stood in my home. It was very dissapointing.
Well, I’m glad I wasn’t the only disappointed one! And I suppose the point is more to raise awareness than to save power… I wonder if there are any statistics to show if it’s working?
Their website – http://www.earthhour.org/home/ – says there are 14 066 members, that doesn’t seem like much, does it?
It failed because you can’t fool all the people all the time, most people know a chattering class con when they see it.
Saving the environment, climate change (or whatever it will next be called) are vital activites that will only work when applied from the top down ie let all the deals speaking out start acting instead; let Gore and co bann themselfs from flying for the next 2 years – we have been Skype conferencing/board meeting for 4 years now so why can’t the so called ‘climate changers’ do like wise.
Make them “do what i do not do what i say” starting from Gore who’s family consumes 20 times the energy of the average US household.
Brent – environmentalist not climate changer
I was watching the same view from Devils Peak, Bridget, and yip – underwhelming [one of my favourite words] was pretty much how we thought about it. It took the longest time to spot what had actually changed. Some more thoughts on it at
SRI-Extra. I disagree with those who say awareness is not action. It just cannot be all that there is…
I know quite a few people (hardcore environmentalists, mostly) who ignored Earth Hour because they disagreed with the whole concept. Its a minimal act, and even if you were to argue that it was about awareness, it didn’t do a great job. It’s nice to have everyone thinking about the planet for a bit, but did anyone go away really understanding more about the ways we can prevent further damage, besides for switching off the odd light?
I was particularly amused by someone I know who decided to celebrate Earth Hour by driving to the middle of nowhere with friends and having a braai. That’s the lack of awareness that those behind Earth Hour should have addressed while they had everyone’s attention.
Ha!
You would think that they world have OK’d it at the beginning instead of allowing it to go so long without saying a thing and then bringing it back up when it was too late. I don’t understand it at all.