“Where were you during Earth Hour? What did you do during Earth Hour?”

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of these questions. Certainly, Earth Hour is a significant annual event that reminds everyone of the importance of protecting the planet we call home. Earth Hour provides a clear platform for environmental advocates, converts and pre-converts (I hope everyone becomes converted eventually) to interact with each other and actually do something within easy reach for the environment.  And when everyone did his or her part, Earth Hour did lead to “phenomenal” energy savings around the world between 8:30pm and 9:30pm local time on 28 Mar 2009.

However, what happened after the end of the 60 minutes? Non-essential lights and electrical appliances were switched on again, and life went on as usual. If non-essential lights and electrical appliances could be switched off for an hour on 28 Mar 09, why couldn’t they be switched off for another hour on 29 Mar 09, or any day for that matter? What is stopping the world from fundamentally reviewing its energy use for non-essential purposes?
A more relevant question to ask should be “What are you doing today to replicate what you did during Earth Hour?” I hope you can find some useful ideas from this issue, and not wait for 29 Mar 2010 to take another crack at environmental protection for 60 minutes. 

Pak Shun
Editor