On 28 March, the world was a rather dark place. Countries all around the world took part in the 60 Earth Hour event, turning off their lights for an hour in a worldwide attempt to save the world and fight global warming. Malaysia was not excluded from this growing tradition around the world and that’s why our majestic Twin Towers decided to take a ‘light’ nap for an hour that Saturday.

This all said, the mind then wonders – how does turning off our lights for an hour change anything? Of course, it does help cut down energy usage. For one whole hour, most of the lights in the city and in some random houses around Malaysia (our houses!) are turned off, so looking at the grand scale of things, a huge percent of energy is saved. However, isn’t the amount of energy needed to restart all the generators and high power city lights nearly equal to the amount of energy saved during that one-hour blackout? I think this is one question we all overlook when we’re so caught up in the Earth Hour phase. You know, save the world, off your lights, make a difference, that sort of thing.

Just think about it. Cities all over the world turning off their lights at the same time. Whole buildings, towers, shopping malls, bridges – making a huge impact because so much energy is consumed when the lights in these places are turned on – and houses which took part in Earth Hour contributing their little bit. But life (and light) goes on after earth hour, and so all the lights are turned on again at roughly the same time, causing a massive surge of electrical energy consumption.

Take for instance a car. A car actually uses a vast amount of energy to start or restart as compared to just driving continuously. It’s the same thing when all the city lights are turned on or off. All the energy saved during that short span of an hour might be equal to the energy used to light the building back again.

And so all this comes down to yet another question. Why bother at all, when turning off the lights and sitting down for an hour in the darkness doing nothing doesn’t really help? People have never liked the dark anyway, and that’s why light was invented. However, I think the reason why this event is so important is because of the message it sends out to the world. So many countries working together to do their part for Earth, no matter how small or big the contribution, is still something to be in awe of. Our co-operation is the one thing that makes Earth Hour special. Who knows? Maybe as more and more people take part in Earth Hour, there really will be a significant decrease in electrical consumption, a decrease big enough to make us proud of ourselves.

So, Earth Hour. You would probably think it’s either pointless or extremely meaningful. Me? I’ve managed to find a balance of both. I think it’s great that the world is united but the whole light idea doesn’t appeal to me. (We, as students, have homework, you know.) That’s why I decided to do my own part for Mother Nature by sleeping without my air-conditioner for a whole night. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?