Earth Hour

Have been hearing / reading a lot about the oncoming Earth Hour.. March 27 is the day, when every one across the globe switches of lights for one hour at the same time..

4000 Cities in 92 Countries participated this time. A fantastic idea, virtually putting everything on hold.. The idea is to conserve energy. Per the report in the Dubai newspapers, they saved 170k KW in one hour. In Australia, it was equivalent to getting 42,000 cars off the road..

I am quite sure that there will be many such success stories in every country, every city. Every one would clamour to state what they achieved and people would be talking about it for a few days.. maybe weeks... And then..

Then we go to our normal lives, our daily routine, where we consume energy like there is no tomorrow. We will switch on all our lights, every single highway, every single multi storey building that we have.. Every single highway, every building, every showroom.. Our cities are going to be brightly lit for the next 364 days.. And then March 27, 2010, we will switch it over for one more hour.. And brag how much we gave to the society.

Did we really? No doubt this is a good idea, a good thought, but why can we not put this into routine practice? Can it not be done every day, every week, every month.. It is the same question that I have.. Why Mothers day one day of the year.. Fathers day too.. What about the rest of them? Are they not special.. People take an extra "effort" to contact their parents and show how much they love them? What about the remaining 364 days?

We have pushed ourselves to the limits of no return in many areas, and now we all try to improve our conciensces, by contributing to these once a year annual piligrimages. It is our way of telling the world, oh, we contribute..

Why bother.. Why have this fake attitude? Do we honestly care? Will we even remember it after one year? Reminds me of the no car day that the Dubai government recently did.. All RTA employees were informed of the no car day.. Come walking, biking, metro.. what ever, but not your car.. People came by Metro, some got dropped, some took the bus.. The fun part.. The Government paid for their tickets !!

Who are we trying to fool?