I think we can classify people who participated in Earth Hour under two categories. One, the environmentally conscious: they are the ones who promote and participate with all their hearts for this event. But they are probably being environmentally friendly in their lives already. Two, the people who joined in just for fun: they just do it this once because there’s all the hype and joy with it, then after that their lives goes back to normal? Save electricity? Screw that!

I’m not saying we should not push for environmental causes; I’m saying that the focus is wrong. Personally, I consider myself an environmentalist, and for this cause I cycle as for short distance travel, I don’t sleep with air-con, I recycle all my paper, and I turned vegetarian. Can we convince people just to adopt any one of these efforts?

On one hand, we are busy promoting F1 which consumes tons of fuel, to entertain the rich and suppoisingly for economic benefits, on the other hand e are crying for Mother Earth.

End of the day, it is still money talks, especially in PAP Singapore.

Thank you for your comments. We’re keep them in mind when conducting the next poll. I do agree that 34 may not be a substantive subset to represent the entire NUS community. No excuses, but there is a need to clarify that the poll was conducted in a period of one hour. We currently do not have any full time staff and we run largely on volunteers who are busy with their work or studies. It may be difficult to deploy all available resources on a random weekday poll. Thanks for your understanding and we do look forward to constantly improving ourselves based on your feedback.

I hope my comment is not deleted as it is not singing praise of TOC or TKL and that my comment is being judged with an open mind.

It starts with awareness.

Many people do not do the things you mentioned because of plain ignorance, or misinterpretations of the severity of global climate change. They simply do not understand. Many of my friends do not switch their hostel fans and lights off even after they leave for home for the weekend. We didn’t learn these things in school, not about energy conservation, not about global climate change. Water conservation hogged the spot light simply because it was a scarcity in Singapore.

If it isn’t for biology and the study of ecology, I’d probably be one of them.

I agree that the hour event is not going to cut down energy usage to the point it alleviates any problems due to climate change. But the first step to anything is awareness. It may or may not have been the best way. But it’s time we started educating people.

BUt getting them to CARE enough to do it? Well that’s a different ball game altogether, a task more arduous than creating awareness.

Well, I care enough to do 4 of the 5 things you mentioned. I pack my food from a reusable container. My purchases are carried in my bag pack instead of a plastic bag from the counter.

But realise that it goes beyond that. When you order take away, the disposal plastic packaging that you’ll use would have consumed more energy than a powered light blub would for the day. Practically every modern day contraption leaves significant energy and carbon footprint. So where do we draw the line?

On a side note, March issue of National Geographic has an article on global climate change, our dependence on pollutive energy, and energy saving.

On another side note, TOC still has a lot to learn when conducting polls and presenting statistical analysis. A sample size of 34 barely gives any power to whatever stat test to be used. Even so, what does 34 NUS student mean? It doesn’t even come close to being representative of society as a whole.

Sorry but I think this Earth Hour is quite a load of rubbish. I have a few suggestions for people who really want to be environmentalists:

1. Sell your car, or don’t get one. Take public transport.
2. Don’t sleep with aircon.
3. Cut down your TV time to max 1 hr a day.
4. Change all the lightbulbs in your home to energy saving ones.
5. Seldom print anything, and if you do, print double-sided or use recycled paper.

How many Earth Hour participants do all of the above? I did not participate in Earth Hour, but I do all of the above. I’d like to challenge all Earth Hour participants to do the same.

Wow, I am glad i was given the chance to vote. My friend is adult but had not voted before. He is glad he got the chance to vote at least in this way. He switched off the lights at 8:30pm just now.

Oh, I forgot the whole thing completely. I was watching fast n furious with all lights on.

waht to do ? lets move on.

My taxi uncle sms me for a mahjong session at 9pm this evening.
I replied sms “No lights, Earh Hour 830pm to 930pm”.
He quickly called me up and asked “Why no electricity? You say which part of Earth wire spoilt?!”

The other auntie of mine asked me when i told her about the Earth Hour.
“What if the baby boy in the house needs to go to the toilet?!”

Like what #9 William mentioned, the message goes beyond this one hour.

Like that got impressive.

Of course this 1hr is not gg to make an impact on climate change directly but hopefully, the intangibles of awareness and positive change in people’s behaviour that will come from this exercise will come true as the bigger picture of things unfold.

Remember to not just save electricity but other things like choose energy saving inverters, print on both sides of paper, sort out thrash at home and bring down to recycling points; all of which I do and I hope others will too.

Cheers to a good event.

After that life goes on as usual.

Oh, it’s tonight! Looks like I’d be watching movies with the lights off. Let’s do these as we’re aware.