Lights out its Earth Hour

After it had gone for a year, here it comes again! Earth Hour 2010 will be held on March 27^th 2010 at 8.30pm local time wherever you are. This year it had attracted official participation from 120 countries including Brunei involving 4 billion people worldwide. This Sydney initiated event organised by World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) is to create more awareness on global warming among the people. Its not just about people switching off lights!

A 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperature could cause parts of Taiwan submerged, as well as parts of Singapore (especially East Coast area) & low-lying countries/areas submerged underwater. Basically we will have to redraw the world map! That’s how severe the impact of global warming. In addition, the cost of global warming to humanity is very high! From extinction to animals to even extinction of mankind in the worst case scenario.

The current scale of Earth Hour is a quantum leap from what it actually is. A small Sydney initiated event in 2007 had became a global phenomenon in 2009 when 88 countries participated last year as a sign to call for more drastic action plans being taken in COP that was held in Copenhagen December last year. However, our 1 billion plus people voices were not really being heard by those leaders, as not a concrete plan was proposed. Even before COP, a few of the world’s newspapers including The Guardian of UK issued a joint editorial calling for the leaders to save mankind. That too fail! Therefore as a Malay saying says ‘habuk pun tiada’! I view the COP as a ‘tug-of-war’ between countries as it seems no countries want to compromise. Some countries wanted to offer substantial carbon emission reduction in exchange for something or some particular countries would also need to offer carbon emission reductions! This shows that there is no ‘free lunch’ in this world!

Meanwhile on our local front here in Brunei, it seems that things in this little oil-rich sultanate are changing for the better. In 2008, a headline in The Brunei Times on the day of Earth Hour said ‘We can’t live without electricity’ which states the reasons why many people aren’t willing to join Earth Hour in 2008. For the record, I guess only parts of UBD participated in the 2008 Earth Hour. In 2009, despite Brunei not being officially participated in Earth Hour, it can be seen that it is gaining ground here. Finally, this year Brunei would be finally participating officially in Earth Hour. As one of the terms of official Earth Hour participation, one of the country landmarks has to be switched off. The choice for Brunei is the Kampong Ayer Cultural Centre.

The media have to be commended for providing more awareness on Earth Hour. However that should not stop there, media should provide more environment issues reporting & tips. In support of Earth Hour, Nat Geo Channel will stop normal programming for an hour. Instead, ways to preserve & protect our environment would be presented to their viewers. However some media outlets choose a different approach which is drastic considering the time of Earth Hour is TV prime time. Last year, 8TV of Malaysia totally blacked-out programming for 1hour. Amazingly, more than 700,000 viewers were watching ‘blank’! This year, the tradition continues at its sister radio station, Fly FM. There would be no programming or music during that 1 hour. I say this should be the trend to look at for the next Earth Hour for media outlets. It may mean lost of millions of advertising revenues but it sure is a way to save our planet! Kudos to Brunei’s Kristal FM for blacking-out programming this year for Earth Hour.

If you had watched The 11^th Hour by Leonardo di Caprio (the actor in Titanic), you would hear him say ‘Let’s make our world darkest hours into our finest’. It means without all those sort of things like Kyoto Protocol, we can still change the situation. Small steps such as adjusting your air-cond temperatures, recycling, using cloth bag (Bring You Own Bag campaign), use less polystyrene containers (bring your own food container), etc may not mean much but if it its practiced by people worldwide it sure will bring some positive effect on the global temperature. ‘Small steps could bring huge changes’

It’s hoped that this Earth Hour would not just be a publicity stunt but an awareness campaign for us to do what we can in our daily life to save the Earth. Remember what goes around comes around! Do Mother Nature good and it will repay you, treat Mother Nature badly, and it shall treat you in the same manner! GO GREEN SAVE EARTH!

Let’s play a role in reducing electrical usage tonight by switching off lights & maybe stay away from your mobile phones & TV (yes there is Demam AF & EPL Football Frenzy night) but could you just sacrifice not watching just for an hr?

As we participated in Earth Hour, we made a stand in the fight against global warming! So do you feel ‘green’ tonight? Its your choice!

P.S. This blogpost might be useful to students taking GP in Form 6. I know you are learning the topics of environment, so here's some help that may/may not be useful!