Well Earth Hour was sure a bust on our immediate streets. The grassroots types of course ate by candlelight but entire houses remained lit up. The same people who put out huge amounts of garbage and have two cars. But the great disappointment is that the whole street was lit up by street lights. Hadn?t thought about that. Safety said one person.

?Maybe downtown it all went off. But it was impressive here in the Annex even though electricity consumption went down by over 8.7 per cent in Toronto (though this number shifted around). ?I suppose it did make a little bit of difference. I found two plugs that didn?t need to be on but we?re pretty careful with electricity including a hot water tank that only comes one when you actually need hot water.

?We couldn?t run out into our back yards and look at the stars because of course there?s still a couple of feet of snow and in one?s dinner party shoes this is just not on. Did we discuss this? Not for long. We?re the converted we don?t need convincing that there is global warming and that it?s going to affect everything about our lives in much sooner than most people realize.

?This year we?re really going to have to take it into weather shifts seriously. Weeds, we?re told, are going to be more aggressive, and stronger. So if you?ve got poison ivy expect it to really go crazy. Ditto with most other weeds. They love these changes, as the native plants don?t.

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