Tonight, the world will go dark. Lights, televisions, computers, fans, air conditioners, and other energy consuming equipments will be switched off to send a message to influential people throughout the world, political leaders around countries, big business operators, power producers, don't forget to include your naive neighbors, and most importantly, to ourselves, that we are aware of the world's current energy and environmental crisis and that we are willing to do something about it.
The first time I participated in such effort, I first thought it was all about saving money from my electric bills. In one of my previous blogs, now inactive, I even presented a methodology to estimate how much one can save by turning electric appliances and lights for one hour.
Here it goes:
- Find your appliances' or lights' kW rating on the appliance plate usually located at the back.
- Add the kW rating of all appliances and lights turned off during the Earth Hour.
- Multiply to 1 hour and you get total kWh saved.
- Check your electric bill to estimate the cost per kWh. You may estimate cost/kWh by dividing your bill by the total kWh consumed. You should get around 8 to 9 pesos per kWh or at least near these amounts.
- Multiply result of number three by what you get in number 4.
Mathematically, your savings should be
- Money Saved = Total kW * Hours Turned Off * Cost Per kWh
And your cost per kWh should be
- Cost Per kWh = Bill Amount / kWh Consumed
How much did I save during Earth Hour last year? Hmmmm.... with very few equipments at home, I save an astounding.... okay, around 2 or 3 pesos. No reason to be excited then. Not enough reason to sacrifice the American Idol replay tonight, justify an hour of darkness, or risking mosquito bites outside.
With millions of people participating in this cause throughout the world, the economic savings could possibly add up to millions of dollars and there will be millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide prevented from being emitted into the atmosphere. But then whatever we save in one hour will just be another drop in the oceans of pollutants we throw into the environment throughout the year.
What is important is the message that we send through our actions, or inactions. The message that we send to our neighbors, and collectively to our leaders is more important than the amount we save from our elelctric bills during that one single hour. Even more important are the things we do during the other 8,759 hours before we observe another Earth Hour next year.
Read more about Earth Hour here.
