You switch off your lights for one hour and you call it a sacrifice for planet Earth? It’s bad enough that the radio stations have to drum it into my head every time I’m in my car but it took on a whole level of stupidity when I saw a poster hanging outside a music cafe to countdown to Earth Hour together.
Totally defeats the purpose right?
Why ask people to disrupt their lives for an hour just to save Planet Earth? It’s a great initiative and all but it’s the people who are in for the hype of it all that is annoying. If there’s no hype, you won’t save Planet Earth is it? Imagine the amount of energy your fridge needs to restart again. Your air conditioner to recool your room. Gee.
I’ve read up on it a little bit and I don’t find anything educational about it. Awareness, sure. But no habits are being cultivated. So what happens after that one hour?
Honestly, would you turn off your electricity for an hour on a weekend other than the Earth Hour weekend just because you feel like it at ? Didn’t think so.
The way the messages are being spread, it’s like everyone NEEDS to join this cause. If we’re already recycling our unwanted paper and plastic products, using hybrid cars and other tree hugging activites, that’s good enough. We’re already doing our part.
But to be so in your face about the bloody one hour is just plain annoying. I still roll my eyes at that stupid cafe for taking advantage of this campaign to draw the crowds. The cafe doesn’t want to save the world, it wants money!
A friend asked me to get my university to join the campaign. I know she means well but in my head I was like, “Say what?!”. Totally impossible, I thought, thinking about how we could probably be half way in the clinics working on teeth and the likes. But at that time I didn’t know it would be in the evening on a weekend.
It’s silly. There are many other ways to save the world and drilling on and on and on about this ‘event’ definitely used more than the energy they managed to save during that lame one hour.
Imagine if hospitals were asked to take part in this event. is it really that important until the entire world must drop everything that they are doing and go through with this?
In my opinion, and I am entitled to have one, this one hour of darkness (and heat, omgg..) is not worth the hype. Get off the dumb bandwagon and use energy moderately if you really mean it. You did not choose to vote for Planet Earth, you chose to be trendy.
I’m going to sleep now.
Nope, you are not the only one.
jo: hahah so i heard..:)
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Hey mate, I totally agree with you. FINALLY! I found someone who shared the same thought! I am bloody annoyed by the constant bombardment of this event through facebook and all sorts of emails. I was like WTF? Those people who don’t even give a damn about categorizing their waste to recycle send me emails to join in for earth hour. What a bunch of hype following jakuns.
To save an hour of energy once a year couldn’t save the world. Those fella got the message all wrong! Conserve energy and reduce carbon footprint is a timeless effort!
Way to go Jolene for blogging this!
jo: thanks George! hype following jakuns indeed. imagine the scores of ignorant youngsters who get all hyped just coz they want to have a good time and only chanting along without understanding the true meaning of protecting the environment
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you are NOT the only one wheeeeee..i think it’s fucking retarded..fuck this shit and let’s go clubbing at that freaking 1 hour wtf..how bout a movie in that hour?
jo: haha:) so did you go clubbing?
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Well, it only shows you do not really know what the cause is about. and I bet you’re not the only one who thinks its stupid, because alot of you really do not know what the entire symbol of swtiching of your lights are.
And just so you know, you dont off your electricity,… only your lights. and no, it is not to save the energy, because the people behind this aren’t stupid either. They didn’t do it for the money like the cafe, but what the cafe did was brilliant on their side of management and taking opportunities left at their doorstep.
This is awareness. and that’s what its all about. I’d reckon you to watch this video, of interviewing Yasmin Ahmad, though it is done so very much casually, I guess its the one missing message people failed to understand.
Link: http://www.abinesh.com/delirium/posts/yasmin-ahmad-earth-hour/
(when posting this link here, the video was not available temporarily due to the host site down, but I hope it will return soon enough for you to be able to watch it)
Again, its not about switching the entire electricity, quoting Yasmin Ahmad from her interview, “You can have the TV switched on, and you can have the Fan, and this is not about saving the earth in that single one hour. Its about creating awareness of switching lights when not used.”
jo: ahhh…
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No offence intended, but to label stupidity to a noble cause, isn’t all that wise too =)
Cheers!
You’re not the only one – I blogged about the mo lieu-ness of the exercise myself this week.
Saturday night’s the only time I do the ironing and catch up on old eps of classic SNL. So yeah. Bit hard unless ASTRO and the other TV stations don’t broadcast that entire hour…
jo: lol well they wouldn’t be that silly..:)
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i still support earth hour. i mean let’s be honest, if nobody doing think, nobody else care about it.
jo: it’s only heartbreaking when everyone really doesn’t care about the environment and throw their garbage everywhere. people who shun the lights off ritual are not people who do not care. it’s people who can be rational.
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hahahah miss lai, i totally agree…
my whole family seems into it some more. they’re gonna have a candle each, gather in my uncle’s house and then light a candle every 3 minutes or something…paiseh!
its so funny la…but owell, maybe it’ll be a recurring event every year…sorta like breast cancer awareness that sorta thing. *shrug*
jo: hahaha quite cute. well, it’s nice that your family can get together and do something together. yeah i suppose. but u don’t see ignorant people going “OMG OMG WE MUST SUPPORT BREAST CANCER..OMG>..”
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Well, if its not hyped up then no one will know how fucked up the world is coming to. I don’t want to be breathing through a mask.
I must admit their marketing strategies are a little bit silly; but I won’t be a smart ass and defy it on purpose by turning everything on.
jo: lol.. well to each his own kan:) but my housemates still turned off all the lights la. and came to my room to hang out coz the light was on. -_- defeats the purpose lah they all.
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i understand the reasoning behind the campaign. its to raise awareness.
But i do not think hyping up over not using ‘unnecessary’ power for an hour once every 365 days means anything. The shopping malls will turn their front lights back on. The air-conditioning revved up again. Televisions are switched to life.
It’s got a good purpose. i don’t see what’s wrong with trying to raise awareness.
But ultimately it will not be effective. You cannot change people’s lifestyles. Most will only participate for the hype and euphoria of feeling as if they’ve done something to help the Earth today.
Still. I applaud the efforts.
jo: when it has reached big guns, sure the campaign will take on a life of it’s own. 🙂 but it’s those people who go out chanting like it’s merdeka or something…
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everything in this world now is commercialized. even when you want to save planet earth. someone, somewhere is getting $$ benefit. dont pollute the air, cut timber logging, save the animals, dont smoke fags, recycle goods……these are what we were supposed to do. not cutting lights for an hour……..humans with monkey brain, they are… 😛
jo: precisely!
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yeah jolene~~!
earth hour is waaay overrated, switching off “non-essential” lights for one hour definitely isn’t gonna do anything concrete to “save the earth”.
it’s pure “symbolism” (that’s how one of the ads defended earth hour) which is just another word for “pr stunt/gimmick.”
especially to those who r planning on candlelight dinners to celebrate earth hour: did you ever think all those smoke from the candles kinda defeats the whole purpose?
the cause earth hour is highlighting (global warming) is definitely noble, but we can+should do so much more is we really wana save the earth. eg: switching off the air-cond when your room is already cold, avoid using water-heater as much as possible, maybe designate a day every week where you don’t use your car…
these steps are definitely more meaningful than sitting in the dark for one measly hour.
jo: yeapp..pr stunt. that;s what i read in one of the articles. yalor.. i too think that if we want to be good to the planet, we should cultivate it into our habits.
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well, i really think it’s up to how you wanna see it.
if some ppl decide to use it as a publicity stunt, then that’s too bad. but if you look beyond these ppl who misuse this noble cause n into the in the humble intention, maybe it’s not so stupid afterall.
maybe one hour is not so much but at least it’s a good start for some ppl. it’s to raise awareness.
if one person were to switch off his/her electricity for an hour, maybe that won’t make much of a difference. but when ALL malaysian were to be united (for once irrespective of race n religion for the good of mother nature) n switch off everything for an hour, now THAT would make a lot of difference.
what is the amount of energy consumed taken to restart the aircond in ur room n fridge compared to the amount of energy saved in tt one hour when klcc, kl tower, malls etc. etc. switch off and all malaysians switching off as much electricity as possible?
we lose ntg by swtiching off electricity in tt one hour. at most u’ll feel a bit hot n in the dark. on the brighter side, u save some $ also in ur bill.
the biggest loser is probably TNB but even they lend their support to this cause.
well, don’t mean to lash out at ur personal theories but tis is just my 2 cents
jo: ahh.. no difference if one malaysian turns off his/her light and plenty malaysians turning off their lights would make a difference! But imagine the power surge this collective group of people would cause when the clock struck 9.30 that night. 🙂 Nah, no worries. it’s good to have a bit of a discussion every now and then.
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Earth Hour is soooooooooooooo overrated. As if that one hour of no lights can help the world from avoiding global warming. Helping the planet is all about practicing it even without this Earth Hour thingy.. I am going to be out tomorrow and see what will happen to KL..doubt much lights will be switch off..
jo: so was KL nice to look at during Earth Hour? 🙂 LOL funny thing is that I do earth hour for approx 10 hours each day. Such is the life of a busy student.
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i kinda agree with vern.swt.my last name is also vern.[great minds(and names)think alike.] and you too.
WWF started this to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change and global warming.
but then there’s this bunch of useless people who normally don’t really care if Earth explodes but then they join and advertise about Earth Hour because it’s the innest and coolest thing now in Facebook .
yeah. if we did our part of recycling and all, it’s obviously better than those who just switched off their lights tonight and then continue wasting electricity after that.then the next morning they go tell everyone:”hey! i joined earth hour yesterday(i’m such a great person)!”
and then some even organized countdowns to this earth hour thing.ugh.really.agree with you.Totally defeats the purpose.and lame way to gain publicity.
i mean, if you wanna join this, just join it la. why need to advertise.they don’t advertise on HOW to join earth hour, but HOW GREAT are they to join this campaign.
but then the objective behind this campaign isn’t really that stupid after all.just the people who misused it for their own interests.
jo: EXACTLY. I can’t stand it how it’s so cool to be doing this Earth Hour thing on facebook. it’s like doing charity and shouting it out to the world.
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earth hour is plain stupid..
just another publicity..
if u wanna save d planet… dun juz do for tht plain 1 hour…
btw earth hour only require u to off ur light.. not ur fan n other electrical supplies..
jo: lagi teruk right… if dun off the other things, what’s the purpose of only turning off ur lights? other electrical appliances use more tenaga wat..
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Its an awareness campaign to educate people of the imminent dangers of global warming. Its not for now, its for the future.
It is clear from comments hear that young people are not educated enough on the imminent destruction of the earth if we dont do something about it now.
30 years from now. When your children complain why is it so hot outside, I hope you remember this posting.
jo: well, based on your comment, old people aren’t as rational as they are cut out to be. You assume that the young people here do not do their part for the environment. So by not hopping on to the stupid bandwagon, we’re lost causes? 30 years from now, dementia would’ve been something that happened long ago for you. Good day!
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You are not alone. Earth hour is stupid, global warming is stupid as well. There was an ice age !! Several ! They ended without any help from SUV’s or power plants. Now the geniuses behind this global idiocy will give many “theories” about what caused the ice ages, what ended them etc. etc. but honestly they have no clue, they weren’t there and peering back through time with science has a measurement variability so wide that it’s virtually useless. I question how measuring temps for 20 years can be extrapolated to millions of years with any sort of accuracy and their grasping beyond these measures with the ice cores and the other geologic garbage they come up with is junk science. When they can take one of their models apply it to 40 years ago and produce today’s results, maybe they’ll have an argument. Until then, if you can’t prove how we got here, why should I believe you can prove where we’re going? They claim great brilliance but can’t explain very common phenomena i.e. Why is there lightning? (Many theories, no answers.) What lives here on earth? (Thousands of new species discovered in past 5 yrs.) What are the larger scale electrical disturbances much more powerful than lightning that constantly pulsate in the outer atmosphere? (NO CLUE at all on that one.) When do earthquakes occur? (When they did is the best they can do.) When do volcanoes erupt? (Sometimes is their best guess.) They know NOTHING about earth but are godlike in their climate knowledge? NO.
jo: lol interesting read. read it all a few days ago, but it’s 2.46am and I can’t read everything again. 🙂 thanks for the comment. it makes sense.
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didnt work for me in singapore too. what a shame isn’t it?
jo: haha. what a shame indeed.
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well said babe
jo: heyeyy:) thanks:)
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@shaike
i suppose you’re one of those adults who walked outside during earth hour and counted the number of houses without their lights off, each followed by a click of your tongue and shake of the head.
jo: seems like it. moralists. pfft.
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