Earth Hour
Yesterday evening had been promoted heavily as 'Earth Hour' in Sydney when households and businesses were encouraged to turn off their lights and other unnecessary power for an hour between 7.30-8.30 in the evening. With all the increasing coverage and awareness of global warming and climate change here, this was an attempt to further highlight the need to save energy and conserve resources.
Rebecca was out with a friend, whose family took her to see the Sydney Swans play at the Telstra stadium (under floodlights!) - the first of us to experience a 'live' Aussie Rules football match, which she enjoyed. The rest of us left the house - with only the burglar alarm on - and headed to Cremorne to look across to the city to see what effect the 'switch off' would have.
Since we were running late for the 7.30 start (due to Laura's extended work day) we detoured to Balmoral first to visit our favourite fish and chip shop, which was operating with minimal lights. We sat under a streetlight overlooking the moonlit beach to eat the meal and it made a change not to be dive-bombed by seagulls! (We also realised that it was almost 2 years to the day since we sat here in the dark eating F&Cs when we visited Sydney in 2005).
We then headed to Cremorne and had about 10 minutes to wait before the lights came on again. There was some difference to the skyline, although not dramatic. The bridge lights and Opera House were turned off, plus quite a few of the office blocks were less bright than usual, and although some lights were turned on again after the 8.30 finish, we suspect that many offices had kept their lights off for the weekend anyway and so there was no dramatic change. However, according to the papers today, first estimates were that 10% of usual power use was saved and many households did participate in the event.
Rebecca was out with a friend, whose family took her to see the Sydney Swans play at the Telstra stadium (under floodlights!) - the first of us to experience a 'live' Aussie Rules football match, which she enjoyed. The rest of us left the house - with only the burglar alarm on - and headed to Cremorne to look across to the city to see what effect the 'switch off' would have.
Since we were running late for the 7.30 start (due to Laura's extended work day) we detoured to Balmoral first to visit our favourite fish and chip shop, which was operating with minimal lights. We sat under a streetlight overlooking the moonlit beach to eat the meal and it made a change not to be dive-bombed by seagulls! (We also realised that it was almost 2 years to the day since we sat here in the dark eating F&Cs when we visited Sydney in 2005).
We then headed to Cremorne and had about 10 minutes to wait before the lights came on again. There was some difference to the skyline, although not dramatic. The bridge lights and Opera House were turned off, plus quite a few of the office blocks were less bright than usual, and although some lights were turned on again after the 8.30 finish, we suspect that many offices had kept their lights off for the weekend anyway and so there was no dramatic change. However, according to the papers today, first estimates were that 10% of usual power use was saved and many households did participate in the event.
posted by Hawkins Family @ 1:57 pm
<< Home