St. Albert saved almost 2,000 homes worth of power last week by going dark for Earth Hour.
About 10 million adult Canadians turned out the lights on March 27 as part of Earth Hour, an international call for political action on climate change. As in past years, staff at St. Albert Place and Servus Credit Union Place shut off all unnecessary lights and heat from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. that night to show their support.
St. Albert’s electricity use dropped 3.7 per cent during Earth Hour compared to the same hour on March 20, said Dora L’Heureux of Fortis Alberta — enough to power 1,800 homes or 2,800 60-watt bulbs for an hour. The city saw similar drops in 2008 and 2009 during Earth Hour.
“Great job this year!” she said. “Let’s try to increase it for next year.”
St. Albert saved about 1,704 kilowatt-hours of electricity from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on March 27, according to L’Heureux. Based on data from the Pembina Institute, the Gazette estimates this kept about 1.58 tonnes of emissions out of the air — equivalent to not burning 178 litres of gasoline or planting 41 trees.
Canada had the second-highest level of participation in the world, said Josh Laughren, spokesperson for the World Wildlife Fund, which organizes the event, second only to the Philippines. About a billion people worldwide also took part in the event.
This is probably the biggest single show of support for action on any environmental issue ever, Laughren said. “We’ve moved beyond awareness of the issue. People are saying we need to address climate change.” He hoped political leaders would get the message and take action to counteract global warming.
See earthhourcanada.org for more information on the event.
St. Albert has been legally idle-free for two years, and officers have yet to issue a single ticket.
Warm weather means that St. Albert’s anti-idling bylaw is once again in effect. Drivers risk a fine of up to $100 if they idle their cars for more than three minutes in a half-hour within city limits so long as the temperature is above zero and below 30 degrees Celsius.
This bylaw has been in effect since March 25, 2008, noted municipal enforcement officer Aaron Giesbrecht, though actual enforcement didn’t start until last year. “We’ve had very few complaints that I’ve seen,” he said — 22 that he knew of. “As far as charges or tickets, it doesn’t look like we’ve issued any.”
Giesbrecht said he wasn’t surprised — his staff doesn’t have the resources to hunt for idlers, so they rely on complaints from the public. Most of the complaints so far have been unfounded as they were made when the temperature was below zero. A crackdown during last year’s Clean Air Day caught a few people, but they got off with warnings.
It’s hard to gauge the impact of the bylaw from tickets alone, Giesbrecht said. “With education and people knowing it’s there, it may have changed a lot of behaviours.”
It’s certainly a hit with local schools, said city environmental co-ordinator Meghan Myers, with 16 of them requesting anti-idling signs last fall. She hoped to do a survey at some point to see how the bylaw had affected attitudes.
Idling for longer than 10 seconds wastes more fuel than restarting the engine, according to the federal Office of Energy Efficiency. Canadians could save about $630 million a year if they cut three minutes of idling from their day. The office recommends shutting your engine off if your car is stopped for more than 60 seconds.
