A group of French environmental activists, L’Alliance pour la Planète, is asking everyone in their country to make our planet rest for five minutes this week Though the collective action will only last for five minutes — on Thursday, February 1st, from 7:55p-8:00p Central European Standard Time, six hours ahead of Bloomington — it is one of the biggest grassroots actions against climate change.
The token gesture will not only save energy for five minutes, but will hopefully attract the attention of politicians and leaders gearing up for federal elections in France. February 1st was chosen because a new document from United Nations climatological experts will be published in Paris. It is the first part of a series of reports from the Global Environment Information Centre (GEIC), the international scientific body studying climatic change. This first part deals with climatic reheating, while the second and third parts will address the impact of and solutions to climatic change, respectively.
While this is activism targeted specifically at French citizens, it can have greater impact if it recurred in all timezones. Imagine if enough local businesses and residents participated to cause a brief but noticeable blip in the Duke Energy statistics. It is a chance to exercise our collective will to understand our potential for social change.
Of course, electricity isn’t our biggest worry. According to a recent report on global energy by Earth Trends, the world consumed the equivalent of 9,702,786,000 metric tons of oil in 1999. About 11% of that was electricity consumption, although for both France and the U.S. that ratio is a little higher (12.6%). In discussions about environmentalism, the
United States (PDF) gets the rap for being the worst offender, but Earth Trend’s 1999 numbers show comparable consumption between North America and Europe. The U.S. is better than Europe at exploring renewable energy like geothermal and primary solid biomass. However, it is the per capita comparison where the U.S. blows the curve. In 1997, each U.S. citizen consumed the equivalent of 7,960 metric tons of oil compared to 4,340 for France and 1,640 worldwide. Our motor gasoline consumption in 2000 was 1,679 liters per person compared to just 290 in Eurpoe and 179 worldwide. Mobility plays a huge role in that discrepancy.
Participation in this form of protest at 7:55p on Thursday likely won’t do much to get the attention of our politicians. However, it is a great opportunity to take inventory on how many electrical gadgets you have running at night. Light some candles and then turn off your power, one appliance at a time.
