Earth Hour is tonight, 8:30-9:30PM local time. It’s mostly viewed as a symbolic gesture, a way of expressing one’s concern for the environment. However, the benefits can go beyond merely symbolism, as this large infographic from Jones Oil Blog shows (yeah…an oil company encouraging you to use less oil? Hey, at least they ‘get it’…). The numbers are a bit staggering, though perhaps not entirely relevant (it mentions the energy saved is equivalent to lighting 172 billion 100W light bulbs for an hour…a device that is being phased out in many countries and being phased out in others…but you get the point. I just think it’d be more impressive if put in terms of CFL bulbs). It also put some nice numbers to the cost of the energy we use…and how that money saved could be used to buy renewable energy plants.
It’s a cool infographic and worth checking out (click the thumbnail here to see the whole thing)…and when you turn off your lights tonight, take a minute to think about this stuff…