Power Outage: Prelude to Earth Hour
I have an admission to make - the power went out at my home office today from 4 pm to 6 pm, and it felt good. Go figure.
I thoroughly enjoy working, which in 2010 means being connected.
Being connected means being online. Being online means needing
electricity (I can only do so much with the IPhone), and until I can go
entirely off grid, needing electricity means being on grid. Being on
the grid means greenhouse gas emisisons. And so the circle goes around.
So, here in lies the dilema...
I believe that information technology (IT - my industry) will play
an increasingly important role in addressing environmental issues,
especially through online learning and interaction, as well as the role
of IT in the smart grid.
That said, after the five minutes of 'oh oh, the power is out'
today, I slipped into a state of mini-vacation - there wasn't much I
could do, and for a few minutes, it felt good. For as much as we all
live on our email, text messges, and smart phones today, you have to
admit - it feels good to check out for a while. We actually need to,
don't we?
Earth Hour is this Saturday night, March 27, starting at 8:30 local
time - an opportunity to turn everything off and do something novel
like play a boardgame by candlelight or chill with your family.
What did the prelude do for me today? It made me think that perhaps
we all need an Earth Hour every day, or at least an Earth Half Hour
everday...there is a win-win - check out the brain, save some money and
reduce our collective carbon footprint - how cool would that be?