Will it matter? I hope so.

Earth citizens emit 27 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year.

That is a lot, and according to a TIME Magazine story in yesterday’s online blotter, will it matter if the entire world, time zone by time zone, turns off their lights? Will such an electric reduction really matter?

It’s a good question, TIME admits in the course of its interview with World Wildlife Fund President & CEO Carter Roberts, regarding tomorrow night’s Earth Hour momentum that has built up globally since last year’s Sydney, Australia experiment.

Last week, I briefly discussed Earth Hour and cross-posted one of the official videos, challenging local residents and business owners to turn off lights and shut down appliances.

In a quest to build local momentum, I wrote a letter to the editor that ran this week in the Daily News and the Current.

In the aforementioned article, TIME argues that the concept of Earth Hour is all and well, but climate change will not be cured in 60 minutes, even if the whole world participates.

It is our charge, as Earth citizens, to allocate funding and research for newer and greener technologies that should lead us to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, replenish the ozone layer, and slowly make the world a better place.

Roberts, the WWF head, told TIME, “Unlike most of the issues that we grapple with, climate change is global. The pressure is on us to do the right thing.”

I don’t expect every Newburyport resident and business owner to meet my challenge. Clearly, there’s no way to test it. I’ve heard from residents who, like me, use energy efficient light bulbs in their daily lives.

We turn on lights when entering a room and turn them off when leaving a room. If the sunlight is strong, then daylighting takes priority over artificial lighting. I received an email from one local man who unplugs every appliance every hour of every day when not in use.

Perhaps a few households is enough to start to make a difference.

Related posts:

1. How Climate Change Will Link Global Bloggers
2. Guest Post by Christina Chan: Why Solving Climate Change Begins with Humanity

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