Earth Hour, What did you learn?

And more importantly how will you change your behaviour? I mostly read by windup head torch for the hour and did some gardening jobs, some yoga, and tidied up our room. I also took a stroll a few blocks around mainstreet Hamilton Bermuda. There did seem to be quite a lot of lights off but not nearly enough. I appreciate the statement of solidarity with those fighting to deal with climate change but Earth Hour should provoke change. Myself, I intend to be more careful about turning off power strips, and thus all the devices attached to them. I already read by windup headtorch most nights and will continue to. I never use the tumble dryer as we have very high quality solar drying potential here in Bermuda, though I never used it in the UK where we had somewhat lower quality solar resources. So today I hung out my clothes in the warm breeze. Later, I'll be walking the hour or so it takes to get to my friends house for dinner and a film.

But what would it take to go further? I like this idea found on Living the Frugal Life.

"Some of the blogs I read that deal with preparing for life after peak oil, or the next great depression, or political collapse strongly suggest turning off the electricity at the junction box for a weekend or a week, just to see how well you can function without it, and to see in what areas you'd like to be better prepared or equipped. I've never done this. But having just turned off the lights for an hour and a half last night, I can see that some sort of light other than oil lamps would sure be nice, if it came to that. Perhaps solar lanterns, or some hand-cranked battery powered lighting. Reading by oil lamps would probably ruin my eyesight sooner rather than later. It took less than an hour with the lights turned off to learn this."

As we are staying in a guest house I won't be able to do this but it is similar to the Free From Power days I did when we lived in Sheffield. Here's more on those;
2nd FFPD
3rd FFPD

Thanks to Cliffird Wirth over at Surviving Peak Oil for the heads up on that Furgal Living site.