Earth Hour 2010 took place last night, and depending on in what light you choose to review the results, Toronto’s efforts in reducing energy consumption were either successful or a complete failure.

I read a post today on the popular local website BlogTO, which was critical of Toronto’s Earth Hour performance. While, as the article points out, the city experienced a double-digit drop in energy consumption from 8:30 to 9:30 pm last night vs. a typical Saturday night in March, the author seemed to be more concerned with the fact that photos of Toronto’s downtown core show that buildings that are typically lit up overnight remained so yesterday.

But BlogTO wasn’t the only media outlet to give Toronto’s Earth Hour performance the thumbs-down – the Toronto Star also took the “if I can see lights on downtown, Torontonians must be heartless, environment-hating assholes” approach. To me, reactions such as these raise several important questions about Earth Hour:

• What is the most important measure of Earth Hour – how the event promotes awareness of the impact of humans on the environment; or the actual quantitative energy decline that’s measured in that one hour?
• If the most important thing is the measured drop in energy for that one hour, how do we measure that: using percentage drop figures from hydro companies; or by actually being able to see lights go off across a city’s skyline?
• If we are measuring percentage drops in energy consumption, how much is enough? As BlogTO points out, Toronto’s measured energy drop for Earth Hour 2010 was 10%, compared to 15% in 2009. On the surface, this could be used as evidence to suggest that the impact of Earth Hour, or Torontonians’ interest in the environment, is waning. Of course, measure Toronto’s 10% decrease in energy consumption last night against the 4% drop seen through the whole province of Ontario, and Torontonians’ efforts are actually above average.

What if instead of just focusing on people’s efforts during a purely symbolic one-hour annual event, we focused on people’s energy consumption habits over the course of a whole year, as compared to previous years. And what if, instead of spending time criticizing citizens for not participating in Earth Hour at a level sufficient enough to meet purely arbitrary quotas, the media (both mainstream and blogs) focused their energy and efforts into looking at exactly how people and businesses have begun to cut down on their energy levels all year round, rather than just on some random March weekend?

As Ontario Hydro has pointed out, the province’s energy consumption has been on the decline in recent years—even as technology offers us more and more things to plug in and play with. Clearly, if we use this as our measure of success, awareness efforts such as Earth Hour are having the impact they’re intended to have.

1 Comment

1. Far on March 29, 2010 at 9:57 AM

   Good questions, Neil. I watched the houses around our street lit up and felt that Earth Hour wasn't succeeding as far as I could see, even as I burned myself trying to observe it. I like your points about tying it to the larger context of energy consumption and symbolism for the larger issues and efforts.