Earth Hour Corporate Winners and Losers

While on our brief tour of the scenes of Earth Hour 2010, we thought we'd check out a few local establishments in our neighbourhood. I'd seen a fair amount of advertising this year and wasn't surprised to see a lot of big, national chains participating.

Very close to our home, the main grocery store, Sobeys, had shut down all of its exterior lighting, as did the Canadian Tire. The local port even shut down roughly half of its pole-mounted spotlights, which dramatically reduced the amount of light pollution in the area. The clear winner though, was the big burger chain we love to hate. The local McDonald's killed all of the exterior lighting and was still managing to have a full drive-thru line.

Disappointingly, despite a whole lot of advertising at other locations, the local Tim Hortons nearest my home was not participating. All of the exterior lights were on and it did not look like any particular effort was taken. Unfortunately, this oversight was not the worst that I witnessed. While en route to get my photo of the bridge, we came across the travesty pictured at the right. This lighting store on Lady Hammond Road was effectively surrounded in darkness, but was glowing from within with a electric meter-spinning intensity. While the logistics for dealing with such a situation must be substantial, the fact that this many lights are on all night, every night is most concerning.

Earth Hour is done for 2010, but there is obviously work to be done. Perhaps an e-mail to this business owner is in order.

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