Earth Hour: Buenos Aires Dims The Lights

By Dean Nicholas

This Saturday, March 28, lights will be switched off across Buenos Aires as the city participates in Earth Hour. Between 20.30 and 21.30 local time, businesses and individuals across Capital Federal and beyond are being encouraged to turn the lights off for one hour. Thousands of conurbations across the globe will be doing the same thing as part of a world-wide movement which aims to give the planet’s power stations a breather and encourage folk to think seriously about the necessity of eternal illumination.

Organisers the World Wildlife Fund are pitching this as an election (like Argentina needs another one of those this year), with a stark choice between planet Earth – which you can vote for by turning out your lights – or global warming, which you can vote for by leaving them on. Simplistic, perhaps, but an effective way of highlighting the incredible waste of power used in keeping unoccupied buildings lit at night. The WWF hopes that 1 billion people globally will pledge to switch off this weekend, and they plan to use Earth Hour to send a powerful message to a major United Nations conference later in the year.

In Buenos Aires, numerous companies have pledged their support; a list can be seen here. Whether the effect will be noticeable in this insomniac city, particularly in the bright lights of the Microcentro, is another matter. But it would be interesting to see some of the skyscrapers dimmed for just a short while. The local government has done its bit by running a poster campaign during the past week, urging citizens to join in.

As an attention-grabbing stunt, Earth Hour certainly has merit, but will it encourage people to think more constructively about their energy consumption and environmental matters in general? Buenos Aires isn’t a city with much to boast of environmentally – go for a stroll along the Riachuelo if you need a reminder – though there are encouraging signs. The city recently ran a series of posters encouraging Porteños to re-use their plastic bags from the supermarket, which, alongside initiatives like “No Uso Bolsa,” is a positive development. Meanwhile, English-language newspaper The Argentimes dedicated its most recent edition to green issues in the country. While these measures aren’t going to change peoples’ habits overnight, the more that environmentalism is spoken, written and blogged about in Argentina, the greater the chance that it will sink into the public consciousness.

As for Earth Hour, the only concern is whether the electric grid will be able to handle the surge when everybody switches back on at 21.30.

*Dean Nicholas is a writer currently based in Argentina

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