Earth Hour 2009

Earth Hour 2009

It was the night of 28^th March, 2009 when the clock struck 20.30 Hrs (IST) symbolizing the time for the united effort in combating global resource and energy wastage.

2007:

Earth Hour was held on March 31 in Sydney, Australia at 7:30 pm, local time.

Measurement of reduction in electricity use

According to figures from EnergyAustralia, a local utility, mains electricity consumption for the 2007 event in Sydney was 2% lower during the Hour than would be expected given the time, weather conditions and past four years' consumption patterns. The Herald Sun equated this with "taking 48,613 cars off the road for 1 hour." Critics, most notably Columnist Andrew Bolt, labelled this as "A cut so tiny is trivial - equal to taking six cars off the road for a year". In context, the six cars equates to there being six fewer cars on the road at any given point of time in the day or night. In response to this criticism, the organisers of Earth Hour counter that "If the greenhouse reduction achieved in the Sydney CBD during Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year." and they also note that the main goal of Earth Hour is to create awareness around climate change issues and "to express that individual action on a mass scale can help change our planet for the better."and not about the specific energy reductions made during the hour being all that's required.

So what exactly is Earth Hour ?

Earth Hour, basically refers to those 60 minutes of a particular day of a year, when the people for the cause of saving Earth's resources and duelling with the precariously rising global warming scenario, unite together to switch off their lights, fans, computers (and similar electrical gadgets) voluntarily for the benefit of our future generations. Not only does this united effort help in saving huge amounts of energy, it also lowers the rate of burning of fuels for that hour, and hence leading to a slower rate of global warming formation for that period.

Earth Hour is a global event organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential light and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Earth hour was conceived by WWF and the in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights

This year, India (Cities: Mumbai and New Delhi) hosted Earth Hour 2009 at 20.30 hrs on the 28^th March, 2009. Candles were lit at various places and glittering places were switched off to complete darkness. This year witnessed on the global scale a huge response from the common people as well as from leading personalities across the world. Delhi's power demand fell by 1000MW. The “phenomenal” dip is attributed to the Earth Hour observed by Delhi on 28.03.09.

Manipal Earth Hour 2009:

Coming to our celebrations of Earth Hour in Manipal, very few students though participated. 8^th block was one of the only blocks in MIT, to have observed Earth Hour. We had informed as many students as possible to participate in this cause. As the clock struck 20.30, the whole of 3^rd Floor plunged into darkness. Cheers rang out loud, and candles were burnt in my room, to symbolize this moment of unity in our endeavour to save planet Earth. The weather was quite hot, and hence it soon became very sweaty. Inspite of this, we did not back down and completed the Earth Hour successfully. Lights, fans, mobile chargers, laptop chargers and table lamps were shut off for this cause.

It was in all a very good experience that made us feel that we too can individually create a difference for our Mother Earth inspite of being just 1 among the 6.77 billion people of this planet !