Earth Hour sucked, literally
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Business, Blog, Internet on
Anyone remember the big Earth Hour stunt over the weekend when businesses were being encouraged to turn off servers, desktops and unused appliances for an hour to show solidarity for the energy conversation cause? Well the results are in, and I can announce that as far as the Internet was concerned at least, Earth Hour sucked. Quite literally in fact.
While Earth Hour sponsors WWF (that’s the World Wildlife Fund and not the large men in small tights getting sweaty in a wrestling ring people by the way) were hopeful that a billion people across the planet would switch their lights off to support the initiative, it seems that when it comes to the Internet the term ‘always on’ is suitably apt.
According to Pingdom which monitored sites and servers around the world during the Earth Hour in order to see how many servers actually got switched off, the answer was not enough to make any difference. In fact, Pingdom reports, that when it measured the average uptime availability of some 35,000 sites and servers spread over 126 countries during Earth Hour and then compared the figures with the three previous weeks during the same period there was “no noticeable difference, which means that Earth Hour had no impact upon the Internet.”
Or to put it another way, the Internet sucked up just as much energy during Earth Hour as it does at any other time.
Pingdom is joining the WWF in pleading with online enterprises to join in Earth Hour 2010, itself promising to shut down as much as it can without compromising its service. Which is the important point, and why Earth Hour does not really translate into the online realm. Uptime is the key to any online service, shutting down backup servers would be an unacceptable business risk even for an hour, especially when times are hard and competition is fierce.
To suggest, as Pingdom does, that Facebook should close for an hour in support of this cause is, frankly, naive in the extreme. Sure, turn off those desktops that are running all night when nobody is in the office. Yes, switch the lights off when you shut the door and go home. But switch off the Internet for an hour? Get a grip, people…
Rated: 100% (2 votes)
Loading ...Comment by John - April 2, 2009 on 2:58 pm
The biggest event I heard of here in the U.S was switching off the lights on the Vegas Strip, and handing out glowing necklaces. A nice tourist draw which attracted many driving from LA. I’d have loved to drive our ‘76 Eldorado down there (8 mpg with the AC on!) The biggest irony- Vegas is powered by Hydro!! 
love those hippies!
Comment by - October 26, 2009 on 12:43 pm
It is a wonderful opportunity to reflect in the glow of a few candles for an hour and realise how much we take for granted the convenience of switching on an electrical outlet for light.
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