So the weather’s not that good today, so I probably won’t be spending the hour in the evening outside. However, I do have plans from 8-9 tonight! My laptop has a full battery, so does my portable dvd player (Stargate Atlantis <3) and my mp3 player and my cell phone. I plan to have lights turned off by 7:59pm and I also plan to be snug like a bug in my room with a cup of hot chocolate and have either Photoshop or Notepad open on my laptop so I can get some things done. There’s content planned, possibly some icons to be made and uploaded. I just wish my house had wireless internet so that I could be iconing (is that even a word?) or typing up content in the dark with internet access. But, since I don’t, I figured that I may as well be comfortable.

My sister thinks I’m turning into an activist, and maybe I am. I see signs everywhere about how people should be getting angry over the right thing, in reference to the annual harp seal hunt. There are roughly 5 million harp seals in Canada and an estimated 9 million worldwide. The hunt is closely monitored by authorities and they have a cap of 270,000 seals that are allowed to be killed during this hunt. Harp seals are hunted for their pelts, blubber and meat. The native people who live in Northern Canada have been hunting seals (and other arctic animals) for thousands of years. Seals are used for clothing, oil and food. Products from the seal hunt are exported to Russia, Norway and China and brings in approximately $25 million (at least in 2006 it did). It is one thing to protest the killing of an endangered species, it is one thing to protest the use of fur in fashion when all other parts of the animal is wasted. But seals are listed as ‘least concern’, in terms of how closed to being endangered they are. They provide income, food, fuel and clothing for families. It’s a business. It is also a sustainable population. If you’re going to get angry over the right thing, get angry over the fact that people cannot kill the animals properly and allow the seals to suffer before ending the lives. Specialists agree that the weapons that they use to kill harp seals are humane, if used correctly. There needs to be education on both sides of the debate, for both the protesters and the seal hunters.

Other protest-worthy topics that I would protest about would include: animal cruelty (note: I still eat meat) and whaling (endangered species that are still getting killed, by the hundreds of thousands, for “science”) (technically a form of animal cruelty, sort of). [I can’t think of any protest-worthy topics that I would protest about.]

[For more about Earth Hour, click here or read the entry right below this one.]