Earth Hour and UBC
On March 26, UBC sent out a broadcast email asking people to “Turn Off and Unplug for Earth Hour” on March 27. I have since received several emails expressing some skepticism about the actual effect of such actions on electricity use at UBC, and suggesting that this type of action is a misguided substitute for real energy conservation and efficiency.
In fact, my correspondents are right that the actions taken during events like Earth Hour are not going to make any significant different to annual electricity use at UBC. Instead, they provide important information about two things: (i) the degree to which people are receptive to such appeals (a proxy for possible behavioural responses to other, more ambitious programs), and (ii) the degree to which we can monitor the effect on electricity use of behaviour change, which will feed into our ambitious efforts to develop real-time monitoring of energy use on campus, in partnership with Pulse Energy, among others.
If we are to reduce GHG emissions by 33% by 2015, 67% by 2020, and 100% by 2050, then we will have to significantly ramp up our energy conservation and efficiency programs. We need all the information we can gather about how energy is used, what measures we can take to improve energy conservation and efficiency, and how behaviour change can be part of those measures. Earth Hour can play a useful role in that process.