Does lighting candles for Earth Hour defeat the purpose?
Saturday, March 28, is Earth Hour, an annual international event organized by WWF to raise awareness of climate change in which participants switch off all their lights for one hour, beginning at 8:30 p.m. local time.
The first Earth Hour took place in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million million homes and businesses pledged to turn off their lights. The following year, the event went global, with the Golden Gate Bridge, the Coliseum, the Sydney Opera House, and the Coca-Cola billboard in Times Square all going dark. That year, 50 million people in more than 370 cities and towns worldwide switched off their lights.
This year, 2,848 cities, towns, and municipalities are joining the eco-blackout. The event’s organizers say that they are shooting for 1 billion people to participate.
And during Earth Hour, what will most participants use for illumination? Candles. The Earth Hour website is filled with announcements – from New Zealand to Hong Kong to Serbia – of restaurants hosting candlelit dinners and clubs holding candlelit acoustic concerts, along with lots of tips on what to do at home during the electricity-free hour, which includes taking a candlelit bath or playing board games by candlelight.
All these burning wicks raise the question: Are the emissions from these candles worse for the climate than simply leaving the lights on? After all, candles emit carbon dioxide too.
The answer: It depends on what kind of candles you use, how many of them you burn, and where you get your electricity from.
Most candles are made of paraffin, a heavy hydrocarbon derived from crude oil. Burning a paraffin candle for one hour will release about 10 grams of carbon dioxide.
(more)
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/...at-the-purpose/
