I find all the commotion around Earth Hour 2009 to have been quite amazing. It was great to see so many people and businesses supporting the idea. Sure it's only one hour, but it's a symbolic hour. With a bit of effort we reduced our power consumption in the city by about 15% and a whole lot of people had some fun.
This year, I decided to stroll around downtown Toronto to see which buildings were dark and which ones were brightly lit up. We headed down to Queen and could see the crowds amassing before we got to Yonge street. We popped into Nathan Philips Square for a bit, in time to ring in the hour, them we headed down Bay. I wanted to see what the folks in the business district were doing. Normally, the lights are on on most of the floor. This time many buildings were almost completely dark or very close to it. Very impressive.
There were a few glaring exceptions on my Bay, King, University, Dundas stroll. The Scotiabank branch on Bay and Richmond was very bright. As if there was a deliberate attempt to buck the trend. So too was the Second Cup at University and Adelaide. Bright, bright, bright.
We were not the only ones checking out the situation. We encountered lots of people strolling the city. Couples, family, gaggles of girls, etc. While it's more likely that this had something to do with the fact that it was a Saturday night, I like to think that they were partying in the spirit (or spirits) of Earth Hour.
All in all a fun evening, despite the fact that we realized, once we were out, that we'd stupidly left some lights on at home. Doh!!
Some photos of the night:
http://picasaweb.google.com/zanipooh/EarthHourToronto2009#
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