It’s amazing, really, how much noise a light makes. And it’s not something you really tend to notice in the blur of a regular day at school. Rather, it seems to be something you notice more for it’s not being there.
The lights were off today at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School. Well, not really all of them, but aside from those lights needed to guarantee safety and a minimum level of acceptable service, all the lights were off today. And it made a difference.
The first noticeable thing was how much quieter the school was. Sure, we’re going to notice that it’s darker, but we expect that, given how it’s Earth Hour, or at least how we observe Earth Hour as a school when the actual event falls on a Saturday. So the fact that it was darker didn’t really come as a big surprise. But the fact that it was quieter, well that’s different.
It certainly gives one a sensory appreciation, other than light, of the amount of electricity that courses through a building during the course of a day. Everywhere one walked, lights were off or dimmed, computers were dark, white boards and overhead projectors down. And everyone, students, teachers, administrators, custodians, and support staff, carrying on with business as usual.
Darker, yes. Quieter, yes again. But every bit as functional, with not a beat skipped, or a single thing sacrificed in the effort of making a substantial gesture in defense of the planet.
Well done, St. Joe’s. It’s difficult to comment on the whole Earth, but it appears that the part of it that we occupy is in really good hands.
