Lights out London - What a message is that?!

June 21, 2007

Just in this minute, the initiative 'Lights Out London' is on its way. The idea is that all major landmarks such as Buckingham Palace, the advertising signs at Piccadilly Circus (the first time since World War II), St Paul's and many others including the office towers in Canary Wharf switch off their lights between 9 pm and 10 pm tonight. Even supermarket chains take part in it.

The organiser of this initiative, Capital Radio, wants Londoners to 'send a huge environmental message to the world by switching off their lights' tonight. Sounds like a good idea to join the recent trend of becoming carbon neutral etc.

But let's take a closer look. As probably many of you may know, today is the longest day of the year on the northern hemisphere. That means that right now (9.14 pm) it's still so bright outside that you don't even need to switch on your lights in the first place. So no reason to switch them off, because they are already switched off. And what about the message they want to send? Well, I am not sure if the message will be received by the world because it is basically not visible! It simply does not make any difference if you have St Paul's illuminated right now or not. So I am not so sure whether the guys of Capital Radio really picked the right day of the year for their 'huge environmental message' or not.

It certainly would have made a huge impression if you do this some when between October and April, but not on the longest day of the year.

In any way, I feel part of the initiative because I have no lights on right now, only the light of my laptop's screen and it is running on battery. ;-) And I have still plenty of natural light to read my newspaper.

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This entry was posted at June 21, 2007 20:27 (UTC) from London, UK.

Comments

  1. Timo Says:
    June 22, 2007 03:02 PM

    "SquashFish" who took pictures at Piccadilly Circus during yesterday's initiative has the same doubts about it as you do.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/squashfish/587047445/

  1. Daniel Says:
    June 22, 2007 03:43 PM

    Ahh, thanks for the link. I am glad to see that I am not alone who thinks that this event was a bit useless with regards to its original intention.

    Of course, the supporting organizations and Capital Radio itself claim that it was a big success and Photoshop was certainly their friend to let their pictures of the event speak their language. ;-)

  1. Miguel Says:
    June 22, 2007 04:32 PM

    That's an initiative?. To qualify as a genuine Energy Saving Message any initiative should demonstrate willingness to make some degree of sacrifice, a proof of compromise with Nature if you will. May the Nation stop having Fish & Chips for a whole day!, that would be an initiative.

  1. Darren Says:
    June 22, 2007 05:28 PM

    My problem with this is that it is an 'initiative' and that is what the major issue and problem. There are too many initiatives around these sort of issues.

    I sit and wonder whether Capital has also joined fellow other brands and hoped onto an issue due to level of popularity it seems to have with the public.

    Also why aren't there any concrete actions - any real strategy towards a UK where we save energy, not on a one day a year basis but an ongoing one. This does not have to include actively forcing people to switch off their lights but by providing re-new-able sources of energy for those light bulbs in the first place. That would be something I would be interested in seeing, not an initiative that just uses a popular topic to increase the listeners to it's radio station to put up their advertising prices.

    And for the record my computer was not on battery but I did have my windows open for light.

    x

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