Earth Hour Every Hour Every Day

In the midst of a three-hour power cut (with no advance warning) last Sunday evening, I decided that Earth Hour really was a good idea. But instead of millions of us agreeing to turn off our lights for an hour this Saturday night, why couldn’t we arrange for an officially-sanctioned, pre-announced black out which would make everyone do without electricity for a time? Save money, save energy and save the environment.

Ideas like this are dependent on generating behavioural change and that’s the message from US commentator Marc Gunther. There’s news of the UK Government’s 2 billion pound green investment bank and where the US stands on Climate Change now that President Obama has his historic Health Bill passed. The Australian Conservation Foundation puts population growth on the agenda, while the Climate Group reports we cut our energy emissions over summer. 

Michael Ashley tackles the chairman of the other ABC and Better Place hopes by 2020 20% of our vehicles will be emission free. The “Plastiki” is bound for Sydney and a Dutch artist puts a climate change sculpture on ice. The Workplace Research Centre has Climate Change @ Work conferences in Sydney and Brisbane, as well as the Singapore National Sustainability Conference, while CORE is launching Composting Awareness Week 2010. Australian Paper extends its range of carbon neutral paper beyond ENVI and Australia’s Chief Scientist Penny Sackett is Lucky Last with an admission of a communications failure. Haven’t we heard that before?

                                                  Ken Hickson