Lights Out, Portland!

A couple of weeks ago David and I saw the movie "Arid Lands"a documentary feature about the land and people of the Columbia Basin in southeastern Washington state. The film was done by a couple of kids (well, they're 20-somethings so they're kids to us) and it is exceptional. It captures, in the inhabitants own words, their feelings about the Tri-Cities in Washington, from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation,to agricultural interests, to sport fishing, to environmentalists.

One of the messages of the film is how the folks in the Tri-Cities feel about Portland. (Not positively). At about 5:00 pm the river levels drop up there when Portlanders go home and turn on their lights. That really surprised me; I had no idea that power usage anywhere determined the water level in the river. (That's an admission that I'm really stupid or something, but whatever: I'll admit it)

Anyway, when the river levels drop up there there are serious consequences, not the least of which are the effects on the fish, or more accurately, smolt. They can die easily if they're stranded on the banks with no water.

Then, I started thinking about what it would mean if people in Portland turned their power off for a day. David and I discussed that it was improbable we'd get many people to join into that experiment. A few days later I saw an event posting in San Francisco. A group has picked a date in March 2008 where they are asking San Franciscans to turn off one light bulb for one hour on one day. If they coordinate this right, and people do it, they figure that they will save 15% of the normal power consumed in San Francisco on a Saturday evening.

Why don't we do the same thing in Portland???? Heck, couldn't we turn off TWO bulbs for TWO hours and beat San Francisco??? What's wrong with us if we think turning off a light bulb for one hour is an inconvenience???

Anyway, I'm on a mission now. Come on, Portland, we can do it. Let's turn off our light bulbs March 29, 2008 from 8:00-10:00 pm - let's get our neighbors to the north in Seattle and our neighbors to the south in Los Angeles to join us. Let's darken the West Coast for an hour or two on a Saturday night and let's see how much energy we can save. I would love to see satellite pictures of the West Coast turning off its lights on March 29, 2008 for an hour or two and save some smolt in the Columbia River, and maybe make the people in the Tri-Cities a little less irritated with us.