Earth Hour - Real or Hypocrisy?

Margot, Glosette Girl and I got into the spirit of "Earth Hour" on Saturday Night. We turned off the lights in our house and just used candles. It was quite pretty.

The quiet of candles

Since Earth Hour is from 8:30-9:30 pm it was a bit of a bonus hour for Margot as normally she's asleep at this time. Lucky girl!

I feel a bit conflicted about these sort of "awareness" or "protest" style events. On the one hand, I do believe in human-induced climate change so I am not shy about showing my support for this cause. On the other hand, I live a typical Western lifestyle; I own multiple gadgets consuming electricity, I drive a gasoline powered car; and I live in a natural gas heated home. I don't see any of that changing any time soon (except maybe the car - c'mon Tesla - hurry up and break down the fossil fuel paradigm!). Similarly, I also am a little bit cynical towards the constant social media protests that people seem to join (not necessarily related to climate change) without any change of behavior.

However, in the end, I am an optimistic person who believes that small changes in my own behaviour can improve the world for my lil' girl.

Is that a ghost? ...or a little girl who's awake past her bedtime?

Here are things we do in our household to try and help the environment:

• We never leave the car running to heat up even in the dead of winter - Glosette girl is a trooper on that front as she's the one who does the most driving.
• We recycle as much as possible (cardboard, cans/bottles and organics) - very grateful for Ottawa for having those programs!
• We have a thermometre that turns down the heat when we are out of the house (that just makes practical sense)
• We have chosen to live in a neighbourhood where you can walk to many amenities. 
• Glosette Girl tries to get me to eat vegetarian as much as possible.

It's not much but at least it's something. And we're fortunate enough to be able to afford some of the environmental choices we make - although I'll admit we haven't done everything we can.  Increasing our vegetarian and local diet as much as possible is definitely I'd like to work on. One step at a time I suppose!