Ignorance of Earth Hour is No Excuse

Absolute and utter bullshit it is. Much of the world participated in Earth Hour on Saturday night by turning their lights off between the hour of 8 and 9 p.m., and yet the country that consumes 24% of all energy and 25% of all the electricity produced on the planet, the United States, nearly completely missed the boat.

Why? Because the American media nearly completely missed the boat. Clueless and/or...... well, let's just say clueless for now.

I'm guessing the participation levels varied in each city of the country and world depending on whether the local, regional, and national media mentioned the event beforehand. Here in Fort Collins, Colorado? Nada. Not a peep.

BalticTiger and I heard about it through alternative media (i.e. Internet) over a week in advance, marked it on our calendar, and then received emails about it from friends and family who also heard about it through the Internet. But our local paper, The Coloradoan? Nothing. Silence. Ignorance.

If we weren't so proactively connected to what's going on in the world, we would have missed it too.

However, we didn't miss it. We completely turned off the house's power at the circuit breakers for the hour, lit a candle in the front window, and went for a long walk around the neighborhood. What did we see? Lots and lots of brightly illuminated homes. However, we counted 14 houses that were completely dark... and without a For Sale or For Rent sign in front. In only one totally darkened house could we see a candle lit inside. We walked past four or five hundred houses during the hour.

Pathetic. But I'm not criticizing the people and their lack of participation, because Fort Collins is the kind of city that would have gladly participated in something so interesting and symbolic as Earth Hour. No, Fort Collins didn't know about it. Because The Coloradoan didn't tell them. We knew that many of our neighbors would have joined in, had they known about it. But they obviously hadn't heard. In the days leading up to Earth Hour, I mentioned it to dozens of folks and it was news to every one of them. Every single one.

So why did I use the word "bullshit" up top? Because splashed all over the cover of SUNDAY'S Coloradoan is a story headlined, after the freakin' fact, "Cities throughout world mark Earth Hour". Throughout the world. Just not so much in this country. Because hardly anyone knew about it.

NOW they tell us?!

And that is bullshit. I'll be canceling my subscription. Newspapers are struggling because people are getting their news from other sources. I wonder why!