Two of my SNHU students, Lim Suak Ying and Vincent Yeoh Kian Soon this morning handed RM30 to the HELP for Haiti Fund. Thank you for this meaningful donation – it makes me feel proud to have caring students like you!
This is part of the RM42 we collected today, bringing the total to RM7,963.
BEFORE & AFTER. Image credit: http://anythingbeautiful.blogspot.com/2010/03/earth-hour-in-kuala-lumpur.html
Yahoo! News headlined “World’s iconic sites go dark to fight global warming”.
From New York City skyscrapers the Empire State and the Chrysler Building, along with landmarks from the Eiffel Tower and Sydney Harbor Bridge to the Petronas Twin Towers and Burj Khalifa went dark for an hour Saturday (08:30 PM local time) to raise awareness over the fight against climate change.
Image credit: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/environment/earth-hour-saves-170-000-kw-hour-in-dubai-1.604194
Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley was quoted: "By participating in the symbolic event of Earth Hour, we show that, together, we can collectively make a difference to protect and preserve the environment".
For those who are in the dark about Earth Hour – it actually started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. A year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating.
In March 2009, over 4,000 cities in 88 countries officially "switched off" to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world's largest global climate change initiative.
This year, some 4,000 cities in more than 120 countries supposedly participated.
This worldwide brownout called Earth Hour is a great initiative – but it is a symbolic gesture at best. If we are indeed serious about the impact of climate change, then we should forget about promoting it as a once-a-year occasion. We could instead consider organizing Earth Hour on a monthly or even weekly basis to demonstrate our seriousness to this worsening question of climate change.
Truth be told, the ordinary citizen wasn’t that bothered about this event. Obviously, the will to turn out the lights is not something most people would do willingly, assuming they understand why they should do it in the first place.
And so Earth Hour wasn’t a success at all if you consider that Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) recorded only an insignificant 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 (Bernama, Malaysia, March 28, 2010).
But it’s not just Malaysia – I stumbled across this illuminating Canadian news report today from Metro Vancouver that British Columbians turned off the equivalent of 1.4-million lights during Earth Hour – a 1.04 percent reduction in the province’s electricity load, which was less than it was in the two previous years. In 2009, electricity consumption went down by 1.1 percent, and in 2008 it went down by two percent, according to BC Hydro.
I don’t think it is any different elsewhere – so while there is some publicity about Earth Hour, we still have a lot to do to convince people to switch off lights if only for 60 minutes! It is an inconvenience to most of us, if we are to be honest about this!
Therefore, it is time to engage and energize the masses. What is needed is a people-driven movement that can mobilize everybody – somehow, WWF, as the organizers, are not the right vehicle to undertake the task. I mean, WWF are supposed to focus on environmental protection and nature conservation work, and even these endeavors are not exactly satiated with success, given the many challenges they face in this country and elsewhere.
So taking on responsibility for Earth Hour is not a smart move. To show how much we care about our living planet is fine, but really, what are we going to do about it, individually and collectively?
If many of us were not willing to switch off the lights for an hour, we don’t really care enough, right? Our position is always to let others do it! At best, we are spectators.
In this vital EPL match for Liverpool, the Reds won handsomely against Sunderland with a convincing 3-0 score. The first goal came in the third minute from a moment of genius from Fernando Torres. Glen Johnson added a second in the thirty-second minute with a shot that deflected off a defender from the opposing team, and then turned provider for Torres to hook home again in the sixtieth minute.
But is it already too late for the Reds to play catch-up?
I attended the KL Advanced Toastmasters Club meeting, and this time, I took on the role of an Evaluator for Sandra Ghouse. And I won the Best Evaluator award in the process, though admittedly, I didn’t perform as well as I normally would.
Interestingly, this time, Lucky introduced the evaluation for the prepared speech to come immediately after – thereby, putting all Evaluators on their toes. I suppose, this is good practice for the Evaluation contest when it comes later in the year.
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