This report is a bit late, but hey ho. J-CAN (Jersey Climate Action Network) went out on the town in St Helier on Saturday March 27th to see how many commercial premises were showing willing by not leaving their lights blazing all night.
The following paragraph is stolen from J-CAN’s website.
“Earth Hour is a global celebration of our personal, commercial and civic determination to protect the planet against harmful climate change. At 8.00 pm for one hour on Saturday 27 March 2010, homes, businesses, civic buildings, and illuminated monuments around the world turned their lights off as a gesture of commitment and a demonstration of awareness and care. J-CAN were in St Helier. Have a look at our photo gallery to see what they saw”.
A couple of highlights (sorry about pun). Chequers in Bath Street had full on shop/display lights whereas Costa Coffee, which is part of the floor space of that very supermarket, was in virtual darkness with only a few very low lights in the cabinets. Royal Bank of Canada had quite a few lights left on, which was embarrassing for Francis B. - who is one of J-CAN’s leading figures - because he is also the environmental officer for RBC! At our subsequent meeting we tackled him about this and he said that he had asked his minions to turn the lights off. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink!
Here is the list of shame/fame in not much of a particular order, apart from the first two.
Liberation station – full on bright lights everywhere
Sure/Cable and Wireless, King street - dazzling full on lights (see picture)
Liberation house near Waterfront - 10% lights
Carey Olsen, Esplanade - 50% lights
Jersey Telecom, Queen street - 20% display lights
Airtel, Queen street - moderate display lights
Bedzzz, New street - 20% lights
Top shop, King street - bright display lights
Dandara, King street - moderate display lights
Aqua, King street - bright display lights
Hallmark, King street - moderate display lights
Co-op Locale, Bath street - moderate internal lights - bright food cabinet lights
The Loft, Parade - bright display and internal lights
Fotosound, Charing Cross - window and internal display lights
HSBC, Queen street - 30% lights
H. Samuel, Queen street - 75% lights
Monsoon, Queen street - full on lights
Molton Brown, Queen street - 50% lights
Vision Express, Queen street - bright lights
Redvers - very bright display lights
Jeff le Marquand, Bath street - full display lights
Wesley Grove - full on exterior lights
Homemaker, Don street - moderate display lights
Bauformat, Burrard street - bright display lights
HSBC, Gloucester street - 50% lights
Barclays, Library place - all ground floor lights on
RBS, Broad street - ground floor 25% lights
RBC, Broad street - 50% lights
Chequers mini-supermarket, Bath street - all lights full on - Costa cafe, Bath street – cafe in the supermarket - all lights off
2 comments:
Nick, we really are past the point of "feel good" things like this, aren't we? The ship is sinking and we're turning off the lights for a few hours?
Please more good, serious posts about how to build lifeboats during this ecological collapse.
It wasn't a "feel good" stunt. The global dimension of the stunt was significant. We were actually pleasantly surprised at how few buildings were brightly lit up in Jersey.
Almost unnoticed by the main stream media, there are very significant moves going on at corporate level to adopt sustainable environmental policies. Highlighting, at a local level, who is and isn't showing willing publicly is part of the overall picture. Most people do not have strong views and fall in with what the perceived mood of the majority is for a quiet life. The more that the perceived majority view is that sustainable practices are something to aim for the faster they will become crystallised. Board meetings won't vote the "right" way if they think the public couldn't care less.
Here are some links that show how rapidly corporate environmental and social sustainability is catching on.
link
link
link
link
BTW I'm not sure how you managed to post anonymously - I thought things were set up to reject posts that were not registered users in some way - see the explanation under "Leave your comment" on the comments page.
Post a Comment