Earth hour

Baru lepas bergelap selama sejam? Bagus.
Earth Hour? Kurang bagus.

There was some comments on facebook the other day when Aishah Haron asked, why I think Earth Hour is silly. My reason is that the celebration/activity conveys a wrong message, where people around the world choose an hour in that day to turn of the lights and stuff, which I find troublesome, to promote environmental awareness. It seems to say, in order to be environmental friendly, you have to suffer/sacrifice for mother nature.

"Ala, sejam ja pon."
See, that is the problem. Somehow people think that the one hour is all they have to do for the world to balance. In reality if a person wishes to be environmental friendly, a day is not enough, let alone an hour.
"Habis takkan tak boleh bukak lampu langsung?"
Aaand here we see another problem. The reason some people think it's not possible to do so is because in order to be environmental friendly, one has to go out of their way and SACRIFICE something.

Let's be fair though. Not everyone who condones Earth hour acts like above but as my friend points out in the pic above, much of the majority are. If a verdict can be given, the Earth hour can be justified as a failure.


An Analogy.
Let say there's a gap on a road, connecting two short cliffs.Would you be the bridge, where you would do everything just to help everyone and mother nature by ignoring the consequences to yourself?

Yeah, hard to draw in MS paint.

Or would you rather build a bridge?

So How?
I believe if a person wants to be environmental friendly, there are things that can be done. Simple things that doesn't take all too much time, create much hype and SUSTAINABLE without the need to suffer.
A simple one is such as turning off the tap while you're brushing your teeth, which can save 3 litres of water per minute(depends on your tap). Another one is turning of the lights when not in use. Common sense, I know, but how many people actually have these so-called-common sense. Here's a few more example I caught up after staying in a 4 seasons land.

1. Close the door.
Rooms here mostly have doors, even very small rooms, which is very uncommon in Malaysia. I wondered about the reasons during my first years, which came clear during the winter. The doors are meant to keep the heat from leaving the room. Some people however, do not close their doors when leaving their room hence causing the heat to flow out. On the other hand, if one wants to air the room, understandably one has to open the doors and windows, yet I wonder why the do they turn on the heater during the process.
Either door close, or the heater off.

2. Do it in bulk.
Cook and wash. I see often people use the machines with 5 kilo capacity, just to wash 5 piece of clothes. The same goes to cooking, where it takes a lot of time to heat the stove since it is very cold so to boil just 1 egg by heating 1 litre of water, is a waste. Microwave cooking is a good alternative, or if you still use the stove, turn of the heat before the food is fully cooked and let it passively cooked instead.

3. Plastic bags.
This is often said by people who traveled oversea, yet it baffles me sometimes when the same person who praises the actions, doesn't really follow what (s)he said. "Nak buat camna, kat Malaysia ORANG tak buat camtu." Come on people, if you do it, then there is ORANG doing it. You are orang, right?


I don't disagree with people who observe Earth hour, I only disagree that the idea promotes environmental awareness. It's like hippies saying to avoid war we must love and lay around all day long.
Have a different opinion? You are more than welcome to give your comments.


N.B.
1. Someone said that the carbon footprint lighting up a candle is multiple times higher than using the bulb.
Don't know, could be true. What an irony.
2.  An article said the energy not used during that one hour will 'underload' the power plants, hence damaging them.
That shouldn't be true. Power plants only have problem supplying energy, if excess it can certainly stop electric conversion.
3. Earth hour is a freemason agenda.
That couldn't be true. You gotta be more paranoid than Agent Mulder(X-Files) to believe that.

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