The candle-lit world of Earth Hour is a decadent celebration of an era that we ought to be
glad we've left behind.
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On 26 March 1886, the House of Lords debated amendments to the recently enacted Electric
Lighting Bill, with Lord Houghton proclaiming electric lighting had a ‘very brilliant future
before it'. Exactly 125 years later, on 26 March 2011, the lights will go out on this
optimistic vision of a better future.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is asking for lights to be switched off in homes, public
buildings and historic monuments for 60 minutes during Earth Hour, an annual event
highlighting the impact of energy use on the environment. ‘Switching off your lights is a
vote for Earth… [L]eaving them on is a vote for global warming', states WWF. Unfortunately
the symbolism of this gesture is entirely misplaced and ignores the socially and
environmentally progressive story of artificial lighting.
In 1859, a small farm in Pennsylvania became the site of the first successful oil well in the
United States. Oil was about to save the whale. With the Gulf of Mexico spill still fresh in
our minds this seems scarcely credible. However, it had been known since 1854 that oil could
be fractionated into a range of liquids including paraffin for lamps. Prior to this, oil from
whales lit many American homes. So, in a reversal of the usual environmental narrative, the
oil industry saved the whale. This is why the symbolism of Earth Hour is so entirely
misplaced, and indeed rather ironic. The wonderful story of artificial lighting has been one
of vast improvements in energy efficiency, plummeting costs and soaring utilisation. We now
burn coal, methane and uranium to power artificial lighting. In the past, we burned whales.
While the use of paraffin saved whales, Thomas Edison killed the paraffin lamp. In turn,
Edison's filament electric lamps were eventually replaced by tungsten, fluorescent and now
highly efficient solid-state lighting. Each new innovation delivered a step change in energy
efficiency. However, these improvements in efficiency did not lead to a reduction in energy
use but, wonderfully, greater energy use, brighter homes and workplaces and an escape from
the diurnal day-night cycle.
Until recently, the world was an unimaginably darker place. At the start of the eighteenth
century, humanity used 100,000 times less energy for lighting than at present. The candle-lit
world of Earth Hour is a temporary and theatrical recreation of this pre-industrial era, the
passing of which should be celebrated rather than used to symbolise our current excess.
Improvements in energy efficiency can also be seen in the transition from wood to coal, oil,
methane and uranium. Each fuel produces more energy per unit weight and significantly less
carbon. For example, one kilogram of coal can power a light bulb for four days, one kilogram
of methane for six days and one kilogram of the carbon-free uranium for a remarkable 140
years. These energy transitions did not take place because of emissions targets set by the
Victorians, but because each new fuel offered lower costs or better energy utility. As an
entirely unintended consequence we have been continually reducing the quantity of carbon
emitted per unit of energy produced. It is through an acceleration of this long-term
historical decline that carbon emissions will eventually start to fall while global energy
consumption continues to rise.
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