Excuse me for not participating in Earth Day again this year. While others make a virtue of sitting in the dark, I will be at the rink watching the Saskatoon Blades light it up against the Prince Albert Raiders. Blessedly, there will be no hour of darkness tonight at the rink. Fans would lustily boo Earth Hour if it was imposed during a playoff hockey game, and properly so. There are only three activities I can think of that are better in the dark and one ofthem is not hockey. Players wouldn't like it any better than the fans. They couldn't find the puck. They couldn't see the boards or the nets or each other. They would be reduced to using their sticks as white canes. Tap...tap...tap... "Booo!" Officiating also would be problematic. Even when the lights are on, the referee routinely misses half the infractions committed by thevisiting team. With the lights off, the poor ref would have to call the game based entirely on sound. THWACK! "Hey ref, aren't you going to call that? . . . Ref? . . . Ref? . . . " Linesmen would have problems, too. They can't be expected to hear if a player was offside. They would have to use night-vision goggles, which would seem to violate the spirit if not the letter of Earth Hour. The idea is to turn off all "non-essential" lightsand appliances. Goal judges likewise would be helpless if they're not allowed duringEarth Hour to turn on the red goal light. What are they supposed to do ifsomeone scores? Light a candle? He shoots. He scores. Has anyone got a match? Away from the rink, lots of people will be lighting candles during Earth Hour. This even though candles are a highly inefficient substitute for electric lighting. That's why our great-grandparents enthusiastically abandoned candles as soon as electrical lighting became available. They would think Earth Hour is stupidand backward. They would be right. It takes about 60 candles, incidentally, to generate as much light as a 60-watt light bulb. It takes only one candle, however, to set the drapes on fire. That's another reason why our great-grandparents couldn't switch fast enough to electrical lighting.
Via http://www.thestarphoenix.com/travel/Earth+Hour+proponents+dark/4508868/story.html
