Earth Hour 08 — Make that flick

When I first stum­bled upon the Earth Hour idea some time ago, I was, as with count­less other envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness cam­paigns, inspired. The Earth Hour event is one that call for cities, may­ors and towns to flick the switch at 8.00pm for an hour every year.

Earth Hour

It all started in Syd­ney back in 2007. This year around, Earth Hour 2008 is to be prac­tised all over the world in 24 cities after receiv­ing endorse­ment and sup­port inter­na­tion­ally. But when I con­sid­ered about par­tic­i­pat­ing and saw the list of major cities of the world pledg­ing their sup­port, I thought:

Heck, come back and talk to me about this when I own my own 50-storey tower. Aha! With me liv­ing in a pent­house on the 50th floor with a birds-eye view of Kuch­ing, just by the water­front. And a direc­tors office on the 49th floor over­look­ing an army of 5,000 employ­ees work­ing their asses off to make sure my multi-million com­pany rakes in bil­lions of dollars.

Then with a flick of a switch on Earth Hour, I would turn all lights off the façade of my majes­tic sky­scraper, inspir­ing thou­sands of Kuch­ing­nites as they look up the new land­mark in awe. Then they’d all return home and switch their lights off too. THAT’s what I call Earth Hour!

Courtesy of buytaert dot net

Ahem. Its day­time and I’m dreaming.

Of course, I pro­ceeded to click that red ‘X’ on my browser.

But seri­ously, Kuala Lumpur isn’t even listed as one of the par­tic­i­pat­ing cities, what more Kuch­ing? And what more a bloody aver­age two-storey neigh­bour­hood house in the suburbs?

If I were to switch my lights off, I’ll look like a dum­b­ass in the neigh­bour­hood when my house is the only one in the dark. My neigh­bours would be laugh­ing and they’d ask me, “Ei bruther, you for­got to pay your SESCO bill ar?

Clear blu sky omg

Then it struck me. Its not about 50-storey sky­scrap­ers, or being a dum­b­ass, or not pay­ing the bills. Its about the dif­fer­ence one can make.

I thought turn­ing the lights off for an hour in our tiny cosy house wouldn’t make any dif­fer­ence. But I was wrong. Look at Syd­ney, if every­one thought the same way, would there be 2.2million house­holds and 2,100 busi­nesses switch­ing their lights off for an hour, sav­ing 10.2% of juice in a sin­gle hour?

Earth Hour 07 Sydney by Sardionerak

While Kuch­ing or even Kuala Lumpur isn’t par­tic­i­pat­ing, well I can bloody par­tic­i­pate in what­ever small way, now can’t I? Its not about how much energy I can save by a flick of a switch for an hour, rather, Earth Hour is to spread aware­ness of the habit to save elec­tric­ity and the lim­ited resources of Earth.

More often than not, those who pledge to par­tic­i­pate in Earth Hour 2008, also pledge to put their efforts into sav­ing elec­tric­ity when­ever they can. Not only for an hour but for prac­tise in their daily lives.

Kuching Skyline at Night

So don’t bother if the MBKS or DBKU par­tic­i­pate in Earth Hour, just do your part.

Look, even our Wisma LHDN (for­merly Wisma Ting Pek Khi­ing) had their ‘Earth Hour’ a while back when I took that photo above. (If you can’t see the build­ing, it’s because all their lights are off and your mon­i­tor is too dark.) =P

So what do you do?

Easy, join me on 29th March 2008 and be part of a global ini­tia­tive to spread envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness by flick­ing your lights off for 60 min­utes from 8pm / 2000 hours to 9pm / 2100 hours tomorrow!

There’ll be plenty to do dur­ing that one hour. Camp out and watch the stars (haven’t did that in awhile, haven’t you?). Head out for din­ner, cos by the looks of it much of Kuching’s busi­nesses wouldn’t be par­tic­i­pat­ing (no guar­an­tees though, don’t come after me when the lights go off in your favourite Japan­ese restau­rant =P). C’mon I’m sure you could live with­out the lights for awhile.

For me, I’d pro­lly be head­ing out. =P If not, per­haps it’s about damn time to admire the stars.

Earth Hour 2008. Its time to give back to mother nature. Do your part and spread the word!

P/s: Check out huiting’s post on their efforts on Earth Hour 2008. Good inspiration. =)

Edit: There’s an Earth Hour move­ment going on at Myblog­ger­con (a Malaysian Chi­nese blog com­mu­nity). Head on there and read what oth­ers have to say! They’re all in Man­drin though, save for my post. =P

23 thoughts on “Earth Hour 08 — Make that flick

  1. ember Post author

    @Yoshi, that would be a dis­as­ter, no? ie: no traf­fic lights, no street lights, no power for those crit­i­cal ICU patients in hospitals..you get the pic­ture. =D Much bet­ter for the peo­ple to switch off the lights voluntarily.

    @huiting, no probs! wow, theres even a video. Really impressed by the effort you guys put in. =)

    Yeap, we’re doing our (albeit small) part. =P

    I was think­ing along the lines of camp­ing out to see the stars for a bit xD

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  4. ember Post author

    @JerryWho, HOLY MACARONI! 2.5 is out?! When you said upgrade i thought, hell ain’t i run­ning the lat­est 2.3.3? Then I thought, unless that delayed 2.5 release is finally out! Weeee!

    Time for bug squash­ing! Thanks for the heads up! =D

    ..and for the tip too! I’d pro­lly upgrade and see if chi­nese works. =)

    @Free, yeah the video really inspires peo­ple! Haha, so you took part also? =P

    Yeah, about spread­ing the word, I thought blog­gers should play a big role in it. But sadly this year, those ‘big label’ blog­gers aren’t blog­ging about it much. =(

    Well thats on to Earth Hour 2009 then. xD

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