Lights out across the globe

On March 27, 2010, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time, people around the world were encouraged to turn off the lights and go off the grid. The World Wildlife Foundation organized this event primarily online (and through various printed materials and QR codes in larger metropolitan areas) as a call to action against climate change.

Climate change itself is a fairly controversial topic in the science world and, admittedly, in the "I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, but I'm jumping on the bandwagon anyway!" world as well. I say this with regard to both extreme stances: "climate change isn't real" and "climate change is mankind's fault".

Participants were directed to the official "Lights Out" Earth Hour site, where they could click on one of hundreds of compact fluorescent light bulbs to declare that, for one hour, they would go without their power-drawing doodads and go by candlelight instead.

There are no official numbers, but on the event's website it says 500 people participated. It is assumed that thousands more across the globe participated as well without declaring officially that they would take a stand too.

The idea was, that by "millions of people" working together, mankind could make a positive impact on global change and, ultimately, the overall health of Earth.

It is interesting that an event that focuses on turning off power requires, in part, the use of computers to declare that you're taking part in said event. It almost seems counter-intuitive to do so through such means, but it is understandable that the WWF would want to be able to reach the widest number of users who would, in fact, have at least basic access to electricity-driven lights. This, I suppose, is the point of the campaign after all. It is not to go completely off the grid, but to just be aware of the impact of turning off your machines (or shutting off the main breaker in the house) for only one hour.

Even the use of the QR codes mentioned earlier in this write-up requires some form of advanced(-ish) technology, such as a smart phone, to be able to read and decipher the message hidden within. This seems to be, to me, a reflection of the digital divide we encounter daily. Again, it's interesting that this seems to be directed more at the people who are more likely to already be interested in the goal of this sort of campaign, or these sorts of technologies. Those who have smart phones, who are on the Internet more often, who know how to decipher a QR code -- isn't it shown that they are more likely to be left-leaners or more liberal than their smart phone-less, TV-watching counterparts? (This is a sincere question, not rhetorical, since I don't presume to even begin to know the answer.)

With regard to the mainstream media, it seems that this event was, to some extent, reported. The first page of results from a Google News search shows reports on this event from March 28 up through a couple of hours ago. The former are more along the lines of "this is what this event is!" and the latter are reports of the impact the event made on energy use in several cities. One city reports that its consumption of energy went down 3.4 percent during the event.

Newspapers, online and printed alike, seem to have reported adequately enough on this. Even twitter is still talking about it (and participating) almost two weeks later, which I think really speaks to the power of word of mouth on this medium. I cannot comment on television news media, however, because I don't watch the tele and didn't check the sites of the major organizations on that day.

(Related to Twitter and news: This past week's earthquake in northern Mexico/southern California had massive hashtagging on Twitter. The hashtagging was so fast, apparently, that theoretically users just outside the boundary of the quake zone could receive tweets about the quake before they could feel it. For a funny take on this, check out XKCD.)

In summary, Earth Hour was, and continues to be, a success due in large part to the Internet and in small part to contemporary mainstream media. This was this event's second year in action. It will be interesting to see what digital media it uses next year to get the message out (website, QR codes, iPhone app, widespread text messaging, in-game "product placement"?), how pervasive the message will be because of the Internet, and how much more successful it will be next year.


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For more on Earth Hour, check out these links:
http://earthhour.hadw.com/
http://www.hornallanderson.com/#/project/121/
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22earth+hour%22