(The city of Canberra during the recent Earth Hour where switching off the lights is a symbolic act to show that we care for the environment. Image source: http://www.greenroofs.com)
It looks like many Malaysians are also still in the “dark” when it comes to the environment and efforts being taken on the conservation
Read these first:-
From theStar:-
SATURDAY night was the second time Malaysia participated in the Earth Hour programme. Generally however, Kuala Lumpur was a letdown because the city was still bright. What happened on Saturday might be due to the lack of promotion by the organiser, the WWF.
Meantime, Bernama reported this:-
Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) recorded only a small drop in demand during Earth Hour Saturday night, with a load reduction of 203 megawatt (MW), as compared to 550MW registered during the same energy conservation campaign last year.
High power consumption during the current hot weather might have contributed to the lower reduction in energy consumption during this year’s Earth Hour, it said in a statement Sunday.
You know what? I have to agree – this year’s Earth Hour was a big turn down compared to the last year’s Earth Hour.
Considering that this is not the first time we are participating in the “event”, we should have knocked off more megawatts. And I don’t agree that it was attributed to the current hot weather. We just asked them to switch off the light, not the air-conditioners, although, switching them off as well would have been great.
It is also true that there were not enough promotions to get more people to participate (last year was better). At least, some people in my neighbourhood including yours truly participated and promptly switched off their lights for the event.
And in light of Earth Hour, let me share a story that my buddy, Alex told me last year after we had participated in 2009’s Earth Hour.
Alex said that in his neighbourhood, the hype of the Earth Hour has been overwhelming so much that his neighbours have been well ready for the event. Some opted out for camping on the outside.
Some opted to just stand out and see the lights go out for an hour. And when the time came to switch off the light, all lights went off.
All except for one house.
The most of the lights in this house was shining brightly. And immediately that attracted the attention of the neighbours who participated in the event. A small commotion started and to the neighbours’ surprise, even one stray dog got into the act by barking at this house which has lights on.
The neighbour who had the lights on was alone in the house. His wife and his daughter were out shopping.
So when they returned, they were surprised to see the commotion and the daughter who knew about Earth Hour, rushed in and within seconds, the lights in the house went off. Strangely the stray dog which was barking suddenly stopped barking and went off on its business.
The neighbour, who had the lights on, sheepishly walked out and realised that all the nights in the neighbourhood were off too. He remarked that he was not aware that there is an event called Earth Hour and the meaning of the event until he was “briefed” by his daughter.
The success of the event called Earth Hour solely depends on people’s awareness and continued promotion of the event. And to ensure that Earth Hour does not end up as a “one hour in a day”, “a day in a year” event – the organisers need to tie it with continued promotion and environmental issues so that one can capitalise on the event.
And like every year, more people are made aware of the issues facing the country and the world on environmental issues; we can expect some small change in attitude on how people are going to take care of the environment.