It was my second time celebrating Earth Hour today and it was as much of a challenge as it was an eye-opener.
Now, everyone has different conceptions about this initiative called Earth Hour by WWF, which started in Sydney back in 2008 and has grown remarkably to become the world's largest global climate change initiative.
The task is rather simple as all we have to do is switch off our lights for an hour every year on March 27 from 8:30 to 9:30 local time.
The basic aim of the Earth Hour is to spread awareness about climate change for people to start taking an action against it.
As awareness programs go, this one is rather constructive as we end up saving thousands of watts of electricity worldwide in just an hour of global power shut down.
Many people are skeptical of this one hour lights out event, including me.
Last year, I asked my friend to participate in the Earth Hour and he asked me why should i switch my power off for an hour when our power grid does it for 4 hours every day. Brilliant question, i told him but i didn't have an answer to counter it. Not strong enough anyway so I bullied him into doing it.
This year, I celebrated my Earth Hour (after lots of arguments with my dad) eating dinner outside in the gallery and looking at stars thinking.
I would get restless at times because I had nothing to do. I decided on a no power Earth Hour, not even cellphone.
That got me thinking, how us human beings are caught up in so many different activities, always looking for some sort of entertainment, a distraction be it music on iPods on a trip from home to office or Twitter from cellphone. Neither of it is bad of course, but in the process we forget to give some time to ourselves. Just to be with ourself, not doing anything.
I found the answer to my friend's question too. And that is, yes, we should do it more than an hour an year. Instead of going all pious one day of the year, if we consume less electricity every day, it would make a much bigger and better difference than annual Earth Hour.
Earth Hour is not about switching off your light. Light is being used here symbolically, like a mascot through which the message they are delivering is that if united, we all can make a huge difference to our loving planet.
Climate Change may or may not be man-made, but its outcome would not be good for us because we are not made to survive such drastic change. Thats how dinosaurs died, remember? We may never be able to stop this climate change from happening, but what we can do is Try to slow down the process instead of becoming a catalyst ourself.
Does it make sense enough? To me it does and i might be wrong.
Earth Hour shows us how many of us our responsible human beings; how many of us actually care to help this world.
By switching off our lights (or any other way you participated) we tell each other, I am there and i am willing to make a change, in my life, in my lifestyle, for the future generation.
I agree, Earth Hour maybe an initiative by developed countries to shed off all their guilt in one hour for the damage they cause to our planet everyday.
If you live in developing countries like ours, India you needn't switch your light off. Electricity is a scarce commodity here already.
I have had my share of dark nights when power wouldn't come back for 2-3 days at a stretch. And Boy was it an adventure.
Some of us urban educated Indians who like to call our fellow countrymen cattle crowd cherish in the success of Earth Hours. What they fail to realize is that this pseudo-developed country attitude actually makes Us a cattle crowd wherein we follow the footsteps of actual developed countries into doing anything that makes us look their equivalent.
The Fact is, we aren't their equivalent. We are still a developing country. So before pointing fingers at people choosing not to participate in this Earth Hour we should realize what we are doing. What message are we putting through. What difference will it make. And are we doing it right?
I know what I did today. I showed the world (or at least people who care to see), my planet is important to me, and I would do my part wherever and whenever necessary to help others.
Remember, switching off lights today will not be counted as a good deed unless you try to cut down your daily carbon emission.
This is our Earth, this is our world. Be a real hero.
