I’ve just recieved an email from our colocaltion suppliers encouraging us to take part in WWF’s Earth Hour.

Basically the idea is to turn off the lights for an hour tomorrow evening in an attmpt to halt climate change. Nice idea, but is one hour in 8760 going to make any difference?

I know the idea is to raise awareness, rather than actually save energy, but the way our suppliers put it is:

“[we] agree to turn out all nonessential lights from 8:30-9:30 pm on March 28, 2009”

Surely if the lights are non-essential they should be turned off anyway, especially on a Saturday evening? I understand some of the lights they are asking people to turn off are advertising signs and external floodlights, but does an internet hosting company really need those anyway.

People want to save energy and halt global warning, but as soon as a council suggests turning streetlights off in the early hours of the morning, all the NIMBYs start complaining that without their world permenantly lit they are likely to break their legs! I have no figures, but continuously lighting all our towns and cities (and most of the motorways) must be a massive waste of enery, compared with turning off a 14W energy saving bulb for one hour a year!

My point: if any lighting is non-essential, turn it off anyway, not just for one hour!