During the Earth Hour, I was happened to be at a supermarket. In support of the Earth Hour, the supermarket chain switched off most of the lights. The supermarket was still very bright.

So my take back from this Earth Hour is that, we had switched on too much light every day of the year. It was only slightly diner in the supermarket, and I observed that only 1/3 of the lights was switched on. In another words, the supermarket can potentially save 2/3 of the electricity on lights. Imagine the carbon reduction.

As such, I am still thinking, since so many years ago, what had Earth Hour actually achieved? Buildings, companies are still wasting electricity on non-essential lights, switching on too many lights every single day of the year.

The Earth Hour is over, the lights were switched on again, what had everyone learned from the 60 minutes? Is the statement really made? Or back to normal life?

For me, the only take back is, we do not really switch on so much light. Only if, through these 60 minutes, those participating organizations realized that they had switched on too much light in the past and reduce the amount of light from this point of time, then I believe that the statement had been made.

Just around 8.20pm, about 10 minutes before the Earth Hour observation, I was at Raffles Place.

When I walked past a bank building, I could feel icy cold wind blowing from the bank. The bank was not opened on Saturday. The entrance was opened because there were some contractors working there.

I wonder, do the bank need to set the air conditioning temperature to so low.
I wonder how much energy was consumed for cooling the building to such low winter temperature.
I wonder, how much carbon diode was produced to generate the require energy.

When I reached Singapore River, I saw a technician waiting at the switch board, looking at the time at his mobile phone. He told me, he was waiting for 8.30pm to switch off the non-essential light.

I had the opportunity to observe the difference. The first picture below was taken minutes before the light was switch off and the second picture was taken minutes after the light was switched off.

Singapore River just before Earth Hour 2010

Singapore River minutes just after the start of Earth Hour 2010

I am not surprised that, most would not notice the difference. Basically, the only the light at the edge of the pavement at the river bank was switch off.

I wonder, are these light needed in the first place.

As I walked further down, the really dark place was Esplanade Park, where the concert was held. I watched for a while before moving on to have dinner.

Walking along Esplanade Park during Earth Hour 2010

Esplanade Park during Earth Hour 2010

Earth Hour 2010 Performance at Esplanade Park

Earth Hour 2010 is over…. but what have we achieved? The non-essential light was switched on again for another 8759 hours till Earth Hour 2011. The air con temperature is still set as icy cold as before.

No commitment, no actual plan, no target set on how to save the Earth.

Related Blogs

• The next best thing to Earth Hour 2010 | Club Sea Breeze vacation …
• It's Time For Earth Hour 2010! « ecorazzi.com :: the latest in …
• Earth Hour 2010 « Flickr Blog

Earth Hour is a global event organized by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature, also known as World Wildlife Fund) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Earth hour was conceived by WWF and The Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights. Following Sydney’s lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event in 2008. Earth Hour 2010 will take place on March 27, 2010 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., local time.

In the same page, all the achievements were highlighted. Every hour, the organizer hope to outdo the previous year in term of participants, reduction of power consumption in the hour etc.

But in between the year, does the overall power consumption reduced?
Do these supporters committed to a reduction in power consumption for the year ahead?
Do these supporters support the Earth Hour for publicity or image purpose?
Or after the Earth Hour, life goes back to usual?

Just this afternoon, I saw a friend commented on the Facebook on how cold it was in a government building due to air-conditioning. This is a wastage of energy. So much for the supporter’s commitment.

I hope that, this year, it would be a difference. A difference that every supporters really committed to the taking action to reduce power consumption and counter climate change.

For me, I will not switch my lights off for this purpose. I believe that it is a on-going process to counter climate change.

Related Blogs

• Elemental » Planning policy requirements for climate change
• DailyDPBA » Blog Archive » WWF's Earth Hour 2010
• Web site tracks electricity consumption for smart-meter users …
• Private Capital Consumption: Another Downside of the Wartime …
• The Sil » Blog Archive » Don't just endure, enjoy Earth Hour
• Earth Hour: Because change is hard
• Liberal Conspiracy » Earth Hour on Saturday
• Turn Off Your Lights for Earth Hour – Earth911.com
• interactive activism: earth hour, lights off | Design You Trust
• Livestock, climate change and a mediocre media « Plan C
• lights out for Earth Hour. | A Green Living Blog

According to Wikipedia - “Earth Hour is an international event organised by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund), and held on the last Saturday of March each year, which asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.”

I just could not understand how does switching off the lights for one hour helps to in reducing the energy used. Countries reported the reduction in Megawatt and directly reducing tons of carbon dioxide released into the air.

My questions is, WHY do we have to do our part only during Earth Hour?

Earth Hour is only observed once a year. Imagine this, if country X reduce 100 tons of carbon dioxide into the air by observing the Earth Hour, that means that country X is actually releasing 100 x 24 x 365 or 876000 tons of carbon dioxide every year. The saving is peanuts compared to the released gas!

I believe that to really achieve the reduction of energy consumption, we need to have a regular, highly frequency and consistent effort. If we simply switch off non-essential light for half hour every day, this would means observing Earth Hour 182 times a year.

On top of that, there are also more effective means to cut energy consumption. Let me use my home country, Singapore, as an example. The average daily temperature is between 29 to 33 degree Celsius. Most office building have the air conditioning temperature set at 23 degree Celsius! Imagine the amount of energy used to cool the building. This is ionic that we are wet with sweat because of the heat in the open space, but we have to wear jacket in office to keep ourselves warm!

We just need to make these office building increase the air conditioning temperature by 1 degree Celsius and we can achieve a much more saving compared to Earth Hour.

The Earth Hour was observed a day ago. I do not know how much energy saved, how much reduction on the carbon dioxide released. I believe that, we just need to observe energy saving in our daily life. Simply reducing the non-essential light everyday and increasing air conditioning temperature are just 2 means to achieve much greater result.

Let us hope that, not only during Earth Hour, then we are doing something for the Earth. And we are doing something everyday to combat Global Warming and Global Climate Change.