(IN): Beyond an hour of darkness

[Guest guest]

http://epaper.expressbuzz.com/NE/NE/2009/03/28/ArticleHtmls/28_03_2009_376_002.s\

html?Mode=1

 

 

WHAT ON EARTH

 

Beyond an hour of darkness

 

It is easy to switch off lights for the Earth Hour but that won’t save

the planet

 

JAY MAZOOMDAAR

 

WILL you join what is being advertised as the largest global campaign

of all time? Well, more than a billion people will when they switch

off their home or office lights for an hour at 8-30 pm (local time)

this Saturday, “sending a powerful global message that it is possible

to take action on climate change”.

 

Of course, a few billion others have other plans that evening and

please do not feel unsure if you are among them. It does not matter.

It really does not matter unless you are prepared to mind your

unnecessary appliances every hour and every day. Unless you are ready

to cut down your overall, wasteful consumption – from fuel to food –

and go for a lifestyle makeover. Switching off for an hour is too damn

easy, and dangerous.

 

Tokenism is always fraught with dangers of falsity. But campaigns like

the Earth Hour offer individuals a particularly dangerous bargain –

great satisfaction at a nominal sacrifice. You switch off for an hour,

have fun (maybe by consuming more power listening to musical blasts),

and feel good that you have voted for the planet. The next day, and

the year after, you may continue guzzling unmindfully since you have

already done your green bit in style.

 

I am not a cynic. But I do not want to fool myself. The Earth Hour

campaign is in its third year and claiming phenomenal growth in

participation -- from 2.2 million in 2007 to about 50 million last

year and more than a billion this week. But where is the proof of any

tangible change in the consumer mindset?

 

Annual increase in the global consumption of electricity is hovering

around the double-digit mark since 2005. Sydney, where the Earth Hour

movement was famously kicked off in 2007, recorded a 16.56 per cent

growth in power consumption between 2006-07 and 2007-08. Even if we

discount the huge power demand to keep the city’s water pumps going,

consumption at office and public buildings went up by 9.12 per cent in

the same time period.

 

In comparison, Delhi, a “developing” city with a higher population and

no history of Earth Hour campaign, records much less annual growth –

between 4-5 per cent -- in power demand. What no climate change

campaign could have done was achieved by a hike in power tariff and

stricter anti-tampering initiatives.

 

The Earth Hour campaign does make a symbolic point and, more

importantly, keeps the issue of climate change in news, coming a day

before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC) starts its first 11-day inter-session meeting in Bonn, and a

few months before the Copenhagen Climate meet due in December. But, by

brandishing figures of participants -- 1000-plus cities and one

billion-plus people -- the campaign also raises false hope.

 

Many of us accept the need to cut down unnecessary, unscientific and

unsustainable consumption. Some of us do not. But most of us simply do

not care – either because we are too rich or too poor or just inert.

The rich-poor divide will be up for debate at Copenhagen. But we must

accept that adapting to a low-carbon lifestyle and economy is not easy

because of our inertia, if nothing else. This is true for individuals

and so it is true for governments.

 

Honestly, how many of the billion-plus who will switch off this

Saturday are expected to make “permanent lifestyle compromises” should

their governments make a few necessary or mandatory? Forget feeling

the heat of such tokenism, few governments will ever risk green

reforms assuming their people are not prepared to accept corresponding

lifestyle changes.

 

While campaigns like the Earth Hour rightly address the issue by

targeting individuals, unfortunately, they also opt for the easy way

out. I do not think there is any dearth of options for strategising a

campaign that could make a real difference. With all the existing

resources – clout, funds and volunteers – such campaigns could try

enrolling people who would make commitments of cutting down, say, 20

per cent of their energy consumption. Members -- individuals and

organisations -- would furnish their bills to show how they have done

over a period of time. It is very much possible to log such

individuals on a global web register and quantify the change.

 

Instead of a billion switching off for an hour because it is

fashionable, I will any day take even a few million converts making

lifestyle changes because they really care. Each of these converts

would be an inspirational example to convince more people. Yes, such

campaigns would have been hard work and the figures would not have

made the glamorous jump from 2.2 million to 1 billion in two years.

But over a longer period of time, they would have worked a true

miracle that could decisively force governments’ hands. Besides, a

community of a billion no-waste consumers would anyway have had an

impact on the planet’s future.

 

Wishful thinking? Maybe, maybe not.

 

So will I switch off this Saturday evening? I might, I anyway like

darkness. You, too, should switch off unless you have a good excuse.

In either case, please remember to switch off appliances and engines

every time you think possible. That may or may not save the earth, but

you will save some money.

 

Author is an independent journalist and filmmaker

mazoomdaar

--

http://www.stopelephantpolo.com

http://www.freewebs.com/azamsiddiqui