Saturday I dutifully switched off my porch light and my reading lamp as a symbolic gesture in observance of Earth Hour 2008.

I don’t think that that will make much of a difference in our struggle to change our lifestyles to save the earth. In spite of the nay-sayers, it does need saving urgently. As I said, my saving of electricity was infinitesimal, but every little bit helps.

I am quite disappointed with my neighbours, however, for only 60 per cent complied. I also noted that all streetlights were shining full tilt. So, I went for a brief sojourn to downtown. The sacred, the commercial, the civic, and the financial sectors were not participating much in this significant gesture:

• the Anglican church had all its floodlights on (I surmise it may have been visible from outer space) (a bit of a hyperbole, maybe);

• most shops had their display windows lit;

• the town hall lights on the front steps were on, the theatre facade was fully ablaze in lights, and the waterfront was alive with illumination;

• the banks had also not bothered to douse their marquees.

The results in our fair town were quite underwhelming, to say the least. Shame! Shame!

After all the hoopla the city of Toronto only saved 8.7 per cent of regular consumption, but judging by the pictures the visual impact was quite profound. At Lakeland Power the results cannot be calculated for Muskoka in general or Huntsville in particular, I’ve been informed, until later in the week. Does make one wonder what kind of technology they use to calculate our usage of energy (an abacus?).

We may think because we, in Huntsville, are remote from the major manufacturing centres, that we may not have as great an impact on our environment, but we do. Each unnecessary use of a resource will hasten the demise of our island floating in the universe.

Why do I care so passionately, I ask myself, for I will  have, as Shakespeare put it, “shuffled off this mortal coil,” most likely long before the major impact of climate change or global warming will be felt. My answer to that is to think of an old Greek adage, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade, they know, they will never sit under.”

John Boysen,
Huntsville