Welcome to the land of India where power cuts are a regular phenomenon while many villages go without power all through the year. A very noble initiative, termed 'Earth Hour' is promoted by government,corporates and the people in order to help save electricity by switching off some appliances.
Earth Hour over. What happens? We end up 'saving' many mega watts of electricity. Citizens pat their back for having done their bit to save the electricity thus the environment thus the earth. So to see how it looked all across the world, they switch on their TV sets and see what the news channels are showing. Since its been a hot and humid hour without the air conditioner, they turn it on to lowest temperature and high fan speed. Add to that some ice cold water/juice/drink from the refrigerator.
So why am i being so harsh on the phenomenon? Because it will be a much better idea had an hour of programming on TV and radio been dedicated to ways to conserve power and not waste the precious fuel that is fast running out. While the 'Earth Hour' also helps in generating awareness, it is far more logical to use that one hour and get people not just thinking but doing something about saving power.
Its not easy understanding the other perspective when everybody from an Abhishek Bachhan to the news channels are urging you to do it, but just give it a thought, after all those long hours of power cuts all through summer, do we really need an Earth Hour? Can we for once stop falling prey to marketing gimmicks? Or else we can continue to 'Save our Tigers' by smsing/blogging/speaking up or 'Saving the Earth' by switching off all light.
Somebody, please come save mankind.
