Idea for Voluntary Blackouts Gets Glowing Global Reception By Michelle Cole The Oregonian [WEBSITE VERSION] June 20, 2001
Summary: A plan to protest President Bush's energy policies calls for a rolling, three-hour lights-out period on the summer solstice
Frustrated by the new White House energy plan, Michael Shank and a couple of his friends kicked around an idea: What if everybody turned out their lights at a designated time? Wouldn't that prove that people are willing and able to conserve?
Crazy idea? Perhaps. But Shank, who works for a Seattle environmental group, just couldn't let it go.
Several weeks ago he e-mailed 60 of his friends: "In protest of George W. Bush's energy policies and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation and alternative fuels, there will be a voluntary rolling blackout on the first day of summer, June 21, at 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in any time zone. (This will roll it across the planet). It's a simple protest and a symbolic act."
Simple, symbolic and, apparently, synergistic.
About the same time and some 670 miles to the south in Berkeley, Calif., David Aragon also thought of turning the lights out as a perfect protest of federal energy policy and the shortages plaguing California. Aragon, an electrical engineer, raised the idea in an e-mail to his online political discussion group, and Monica Rex, a Los Angeles artist, took it from there.
"I composed an e-mail mentioning the sun god," Rex said. "There are a lot of versions, now."
E-mail promoting Thursday's "voluntary rolling blackout" -- timed to the first day of summer -- has made its way around the world in the past several weeks. The call to turn the lights out has been translated into a number of languages and repeated on Web pages, faxes and even in church bulletins.
The idea apparently resonates with ordinary people who are worried about a summer energy shortage and talk of building new nuclear power plants. It's something Regular Joe and Jane see that they can do, Shank said.
"Within a week I was getting 15 responses a day from places like Australia, Canada, Kentucky," he said. "The campaign has grown to proportions I hardly expected."
No one knows what, precisely, will happen -- or not -- on Thursday.
Some have denounced the "voluntary blackout" as just another e-mail hoax. Repeated cut-and-pasting dropped the originators' names from many of the e-mails now making the rounds. A sea of untethered e-mail would seem to have less traction than other forms of social protest.
But Matthew Follett received the anonymous e-mail and forwarded it with his name and address tagged on. Suddenly Follett, who works for a Lake Oswego-based organization concerned about global warming, also began fielding inquiries.
"I've been getting calls from all over," he said. "The Denmark Socialist Party wrote and said, 'This is a great idea, but it's still sunny in Denmark during this time of year. Can we do it in winter?' "
It doesn't matter to Bob Cogan how it all started. To him, a voluntary blackout is simply a good idea.
A member of the Peace and Justice committee at St. Clare Catholic Church in Southwest Portland, Cogan asked that the voluntary blackout notice be included in the June 10 and June 17 church bulletins.
"We've got to conserve," Cogan said. "I will definitely be turning everything I can off that evening."
Last month, President Bush announced an energy plan that includes conservation but combats long-term energy shortages primarily by expanding production. It calls for opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling as well as easing regulations to allow for more offshore oil and gas drilling along the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The administration also encourages the Nuclear Regulator Commission to expedite applications for new nuclear power plant construction.
Troubled by the direction of the national policy, Monika Hunter was so inspired by the voluntary blackout that she wrote a letter to her local newspaper, the Heppner Gazette-Times. She also made yellow fliers to post around her Eastern Oregon town. The flier invites Heppner's 1,395 residents to "take a stroll, watch the stars . . . do anything that's not electronic."
"I just want to be part of the solution," Hunter said.
To be truly part of the solution, Mark Glyde of the Northwest Energy Coalition suggests, people should mark the first day of summer by buying energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs.
"That's a great way to save energy that goes farther than that three-hour period," Glyde said.
That said, Glyde described the "voluntary blackout" as a great way to raise awareness about the way we use energy.
Shank expects that in the days leading up to the summer solstice he'll be giving more media interviews. A German radio station phoned the other day. Aragon says the Web page he created, www.rollyourownblackout.com, is getting about 4,000 hits a day.
Aragon said he's been so busy maintaining and updating the site that he hasn't thought about his own plans for Thursday evening.
Shank said he plans to be at the Golden Gardens Park overlooking Puget Sound. He'll watch the sunset and think about the wave of blackouts rolling across the globe.
Copyright (c) 2001 Oregonian Publishing Co. Record Number: 0106200123