Saturday, March 27, 2010

Earth Hour 2010 I did lip service too....

Last year, I did observe Earth Hour, with limited enthu. But I had decided 2010 will be different and surely, better.

Couple of weeks back, saw 'Earth Hour pop-up' on my gmail. I clicked, enrolled... then I realized I was on their Canada-sector :) Neverthless, I continued to receive email from them. That enabled me to make pleas on my Twitter, Facebook and blog... I tried word of mouth too... This morning, I sent a quick reminder to most of my email contacts... None responded...yet ! Makes me wonder, is it all worth it ?? Perhaps on a Sat evening, people are busy with their week-end plans !!! How many of us really care for our environment ?!!!

As I stepped out of office, I remembered to switch off the light. I made it a point to remind the cleaning team, to switch off the lights after they finish. 

When I walked back home (yes, 'walk'!) I saw the lights were already on. Again, made me wonder... living almost in the middle of desert, urbanised surely, we have too much of 'light pollution'. Same is the case with most urbanised landscape...The lights in corridors of our buildings are always on. I never miss an opportunity to switch off the lights during day time, only to find them 'on' almost immediately ! The awareness is low or may be we don't care...

Dada and KKR made a come back, finally at IPL3. I wonder, why the sole match was not scheduled at 4 PM IST, instead of 8 PM. There was no way to switch off lights at 830 PM, during the match. And IPL3 has been prominently paying lip-service to GO GREEN too... ! 

A friend here has opted out of the whole things saying 'earth has a natural mechanism to correct, by natural disasters, etc. Why bother?'... Interesting !


Another friend laments... 'we have switched off most of it, except A/c and TV. Family wants to watch a bollywood flick'! He was helpless...


As the clock hit 830 PM, I was out on an 'important' work - to take my son to get his xbox repaired, a long pending promise. I found the shops were no way near the 'earth hour'. ON way back, asked the laundry guy, 'why not switch off couple of lights'. He says there was a common switch for all the three lights! And why bother, the malls and other big buildings are switching off and saving a lot of power...he feels his participation was insignificant. Tragedy, a lot others think same too... !


All I could do was to get back, switch off as much possible and get into the evening prayer-mode. Escapist ? May be... The world does not seem to care and when you are helpless, prayer & meditation are the best options. 


Samastha Loka Sukhino Bhavanthu...

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