There was a question asked in one of those movies about the Vietnam War – it may have been Full Metal Jacket, Brothers in Arms or Casualties of War, or possibly even Platoon; I can’t say for sure, but the particular movie doesn’t really matter nearly as much as the particular question, especially in light of the recent Earth Hour 2008 brouhaha.
I’m sure you’re wondering what exactly the Vietnam War has to do with Earth Hour 2008 and the answer, of course, is nothing, except for that one question in one of those movies that asked, “You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?”
To paraphrase, the question suggests that simply spouting off about one issue or another is one thing, but actions speak volumes.
Having said that, let’s look back on Earth Hour 2008, which was on Saturday, March 29.
In the week leading up to Earth Hour 2008, this newspaper, along with basically every other newspaper regardless of size, was inundated with a variety of catchy press releases from major corporations, and even a few governments, claiming how dedicated they were to environmental issues and implored average households to follow their lead and turn out the lights for one hour, thus contributing greatly to the saving of the planet.
It’s nothing new for newspapers.
Earth Hour or not, papers are constantly subjected to these press releases which, for lack of a better explanation, are nothing more than attempts to get some free advertising by jumping on the latest trend or bandwagon, and in this case it’s the environment.
But as they used to say back in the ‘Nam, “You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?”
I highly doubt that the quality of life for a polar bear cub for example, increased very much at all simply because some corporate giant decided to turn the lights out in some huge office tower for an hour. Does the business community really believe the rest of us are actually as gullible as that?
If the corporate community was as truly committed to the environment as they claim they are, why wont they “walk the walk”, and turn out the lights all night, every night?
Some might argue that the lights of a big city must be left on to aid in flight navigations for planes arriving and departing throughout the night, and that’s a very valid argument – if this was 1923.
But rather than examining those same gigantic corporate office towers in some far away place like New York City, let’s bring things a bit closer to home and look at another city that, at least lately, takes great pride in flexing its muscles while pointing to its burgeoning skyline claiming, “look how big and rich we are” – that being Calgary.
And of course they do.
But so do Edmonton, Saskatoon, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and virtually every other city, and it all comes down to ego. For example, there’s no way the City of Edmonton will demand its tower owner/occupiers turn the lights out after midnight because it doesn’t want to look inferior to Calgary. The same thing applies for Saskatoon and Regina, Toronto and Montreal and on and on, and that’s all fine and dandy. Let the cities play their games with each other, because this isn’t about the towers in any particular city. This issue is about the corporations that own and/or occupy those towers.
How much scorn would we as average citizens be subjected to from our friends and neighbours if we left all the lights on in our houses or dwellings all night, every night?
In fact, you can be assured that after only a few nights you’d be getting a visit from the local police wondering what’s going on.
So how is it that the corporate world escapes the same scorn for dong the exact same thing?
They’ll probably never read this, but let the record show that the message has gone out to all the owners and occupiers of all those magnificent towers in downtown that we the public are not the least bit impressed by your ability to pay your huge power bills every month.
But on the other hand, if you are really committed to the environment and you really want to impress the rest of us, why not try turning the lights out between midnight and 6 a.m.? Who knows, the first building that does so may start a bit of a trend and basically guilt others into doing the same thing.
And if you really, really want to impress us, how about taking the thousands of dollars you’ll save every month on your power bill and donate it to a homeless shelter, a food bank or a humane society?
Now that would be impressive.
The same goes for the governments too. Enough of the talking already, it’s time to see some walking.
With the stroke of a pen and a little intestinal fortitude, Uncle Ed and what’s-his-name in Ottawa could mandate high-rise owner/occupiers to turn out their lights after a certain hour. You can be sure there’ll be a big flap over that from the corporations so, even better, why not allow them to keep only the lights of their top floor on?
By doing it that way, everybody’s happy. The “fat cats”, as the late, great Tommy Douglas used to say, can get a little fatter by saving a ton of money that they, in turn, will hopefully donate to worthwhile charities (ya, right!), the politicians can pat each other on the backs for coming up with such a great idea (ya, right!) and the rest of us peons can sleep a bit better at night, both figuratively and literally.
There’s another advantage to turning out the lights too. Birds use the stars to navigate but at the same time, they are attracted to all the insects that are, in turn, attracted to the lights of big cities. The lights however, obscure the bird’s view of the stars causing their navigation techniques to fail them and in many cases they continually circle the same building in order to escape until they literally die of exhaustion.
There was no readily available statistics for Canada, but it is estimated that 100 million birds are killed every year in the United States as a result of the above or from slamming into high-rise buildings, so there’s another great argument for turning the lights out.
Besides, at 3:30 in the morning, does anyone really care if you can see the Petro-Canada Towers or not? The same goes for Banker’s Hall, the Trans-Canada Tower, the Home Oil Tower and all the rest of them in Calgary’s core.
After all, most of those towers are owned and occupied by companies who have exploited the environment for their own benefit with untold wealth, so why should they be allowed, without stiff financial penalties, to compound the problems of the disaster in Fort McMurray and many other areas around the world that they created in the first place?
For the corporate community and the governments, the time has come to cut the crap and stop talking the talk and start walking the walk.