by Erick Mott
I was up late last night working and decided to check my Gmail account. First thing I noticed was a black screen on Google's landing page. My initial reaction was Google's site had been hacked, or there was a UI issue, or some sort of display glitch on my end. I know Google often changes their logo for certain holidays and special occasions, but I just couldn't figure out what was going on with the home page.
Then I read further and noticed their post about Earth Hour. Ahhhh, Google the innovator and global activist was at it again. I started to think about the issues and what I could do to contribute. Then I visited the Earth Hour site and read more about this global initiative; very cool.
We just put the kids down to sleep and turned off the lights. It's now 8:00 PM PST in the San Francisco Bay Area and our neighborhood is pretty dark; looks like some of the neighbors are at it too. True, I have the computer on but with all things considered, I think my Earth Hour contribution is a positive one. After all, I could be:
- Driving somewhere, or...
- Running the TV, lights and heat, or...
- Flying in a 757 to some exotic destination, or...
- Worse, ignoring the issues
Since having two young kids in the past few years, I find myself thinking different. Bottom line, it's all about them: helping them to grow into healthy, happy people; doing what I can to protect their futures; enjoying life in the present but also making a personal contribution every day by thinking and acting in a responsible way.
OK, it's that time to push the button and make this blog post go global. Sure, there will be a number of servers, routers and switches running across the network to carry this message of commitment and hope. But even the engineers at Sun, HP, Dell, Cisco, etc. are innovating to make computing and communications equipment run more efficiently, so I don't feel guilty about not turning off my PC and blogging.
Our family is in the dark tonight but we're not blind to the environmental issues that are important to us all. It's now 8:25 PM PST; I think I'll take a walk and enjoy the evening sky.
Your comments, ideas and links?
