Why is Earth Hour so easy to forget?

April 3rd, 2012

Appliance News Environment, Energy & Water Saving

If Earth Hour is more than just a one-night stand, why is it so easy to forget?

It’s quite impressive, really, that a voluntary movement has inspired well over a billion people to go out of their way on a Saturday night to turn off their lights.

The precise number of switches are still being tallied but last year, 1.8 billion turned off the juice in an effort to promote action for a sustainable future.

Together with the already 1.5 billion people in the world without access to electricity, that’s about 40 per cent of the world’s population which sat in darkness between 8.30pm and 9.30pm local time on 31 March.

But not me, I forgot. And I’m all for the (albeit elusive) term, ‘raising awareness’.

I vote green, recycle, reuse, am forever turning lights off around the house, and ride my bike.  I won’t chain myself to trees but hey, I like to plant them.

Miranda Kerr does it, how about you?

That being said, not once in five years have I remembered to turn the lights off for Earth Hour. This year I even wrote a story about the darned event the Thursday before.

Fortunately it’s not an early case of Alzheimer’s. It turns out plenty of us forgot.

Hundreds of people ‘Liked’ an Appliances Online Facebook post asking who had forgotten the WWF-motivated movement.

Why did we forget Earth Hour?

“I forgot about it, it wasn’t even advertised enough I sat an watched the football,” admitted one Fan.

“Didn’t forget, didn’t even know until after the event!” said another.

“Where was the publicity for it? Only knew it was on tonight because of a quick mention in the news …”

“I usually take part but totally forgot. It needs to be advertised more and closer to the time.”

There's a few billion yet to be convinced

According to these comments, time appropriate promotion for Earth Hour has been lacking. The voluntary movement relies on the goodwill of individuals, private companies and the media to spread the word.

This year for example, the giant Chinese appliance maker Haier got it’s 70,000 global employees to pledge to turn off their lights to show their support. It also hosted a series of public performances around the globe including a candlelight concert in Osaka and a home appliances percussion performance in New York.

Other people left comments about why they thought Earth Hour was trivial.

“A volcanic eruption puts more carbon into the atmosphere in 24hrs than humanity can in a lifetime,” argued a Fan.

“All these people going on about saving energy what are you doing on Facebook? Even if you are on phones or laptops you are still draining the power you charged with what a joke.”

There’s even a Facebook page entitled: Woops forgot earth hour i was playing cod 6.

For the rest of us well meaning but forgetful lot, perhaps the easiest way to remember Earth Hour is to make a plan for it.

Invite people over for a night of boardgames or cards or charades. (Yes, there was entertainment before the internet).