This weekend, Western will join the world in turning turn out the lights.
Launched in 2007, World Earth Hour takes place from 8:30-9:30 p.m. Saturday, March 23 wherever you are on the planet. Billed as the single largest, symbolic mass participation event in the world, Earth Hour 2013 again asks every person, business and city to turn their lights out and reduce their energy consumption for one hour.
In 2012, Earth Hour celebrated its largest event to date with more than 7,000 cities and towns in 152 countries and territories switching off their lights and cutting back on energy consumption. This year, it is anticipated the event will become even larger.
“Everyone within the Western community can participate in this great initiative,” said Beverley Ayeni, Western’s energy and environment manager. “Since most staff, students and faculty will be at home at this time, the simplest thing that everyone can do is light some candles and turn out the lights.”
For the hour, Western Environmental System (WES) Control group will be shutting off all non-essential air handling units on campus to cut back on energy consumption.
“Using UWO reservations information, we can see when most areas on campus will be occupied or unoccupied,” said Dan Larkin, WES control systems specialist. “We shut off heating pumps and fans to areas that are projected to be unoccupied as long as outdoor conditions are not extremely cold.”
The effects of this shut down are rarely significant enough to be felt by individuals if the room does become occupied, especially if the shut down only lasts for one hour.
Caretaking and Hospitality Services staff will also be encouraged to ensure all lights are shut off in unoccupied areas on campus.
Additionally, communications have been sent out to all residence students to ensure that they are adopting energy-saving tips and tricks.
“By shutting the blinds at home and at work, smaller amounts of energy will be spent on keeping areas warm,” Ayeni said. “Another great way to conserve energy is to make sure that all computers and printers are turned off when they are not in use.”
Visit sustainability.uwo.ca for more information.
– Stefanie De Adder
NEWS AND NOTES
- Four Western Geology/Planetary Science undergraduate students were selected to participate in the NASA Undergraduate Planetary Science Research Conference, held Sunday in Houston, Texas, prior to the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). Salma Abou-Aly, Michael Bramble, Jacky Clayton and Adam Coulter were named among the 24 international students receiving the honour.
- A new mobile printing service is now available to the Western community, allowing students, staff and faculty to wirelessly print photos, emails, reports and documents from their mobile devices. Two HP ePRINTit kiosks are available on campus – one in Elgin Hall’s common room, the other on the ground floor of the Social Sciences Centre. Users need to download the HP ePrint service mobile app (available at hp.com/go/eprintmobile) which will allow them to upload content and select a print location. A service charge of $1 applies to every transaction, black and white hi-res copies are 20 cents, colour prints are 55 cents and each 4×6 photo is 35 cents. Users can pay for each transaction with a credit card or a debit card. Western’s is the first campus in Canada to offer this service, said Bruce Maslen, associate director if the graphic services department. “They are here on a trial basis. They’re located in areas where they’re accessible all day – they’re available for use right away. Once the word gets out that they’re available and what they can do, we think the (traffic) will increase,” he said.
- The note of compassion Western English student Kierston Drier wrote and tacked up in a University College washroom stall, in response to graffiti confessions of rape, eating disorders and an alcoholic father, quickly went viral last month. It prompted similar gestures and an outpour of support and now, has given rise to The Bathroom Stall Project, launched last week on campus. Drier partnered with the University Students’ Council and launched the project during Mental Health Awareness Week, disseminating positive messages of support and asking the campus community to partake, by writing down notes on bagel bags, coffee cups and scrap pieces of paper. More than 2,000 Spoke bagels were bought with messages on their bags echoing Drier’s letter.
“Since the note went viral, other anonymous notes have appeared all over (Western’s) campus written by others, and online blogs from Western students have been flooded with confessional testimony of other people’s personal traumas, and been responded to by peers with further gestures of compassion and kindness,” Drier said.
She has contacted a number of universities, sharing the initiative and added the University of Toronto, the University of Guelph and the University of Alberta have all expressed an interest in starting something similar. Drier has also reached out to schools in the United States and is hopeful of spreading the message of compassion further. Drier is asking those who received a note or message of support last week to provide feedback on the initiative by emailing her at kdrier2@uwo.ca. The feedback will be used in proposals for a similar initiative in other schools.