Later during 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, the city where I live in will conduct the Earth Hour. This activity is supposed to remind and raise awareness about saving the environment and Earth, through reducing carbon emission. It is important to reduce carbon emission, but I will say this: Earth Hour is stupid, pointless and useless.
Many people believe that the Earth Hour is here to reduce carbon emission, whereas it is supposed to only raise awareness and send a message. These people spread the wrong message, and it is bad for the event. One hour of blackout is equivalent to nothing. There would be no impact on carbon usage. Power stations would still be burning fuels to create energy regardless even if everyone off the light. If they decided to shut down the power stations, hospitals will have a bad night. Hospitals require energy to keep patients alive. If they were to shut down power stations, we would need very powerful stations that can cope with the upsurge of energy after an hour. Guess what type of fuel is good and efficient for this? Yep, fossil fuels. And the emitted carbon will just cancel out whatever was reduced in the hour, as alternative energy would take a longer time to start up. The huge upsurge of energy could also be created if a lot of people were to turn on their lights at once after the Hour, and there would be a chance that a substation would have a fuse blown. A small chance, but nevertheless a higher percentage than that of Earth Hour's impact on the environment. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation boasted that the energy saved is equivalent of taking away 48,000 cars off the road. There is about 8766 hours per year, and with elementary Maths, we would get about 5.47 cars off the road a year. Wow. That's a lot of energy saved. And then there are people who use candles to light up their homes. I believe they have forgotten that candles is made of hydrocarbon, and they release carbon dioxide. We can clearly see that Earth Hour does not reduce carbon emission, rather it might even increase it.
Another thing to note is that this event might be sending out a wrong message. Through this event, we turn off all electrical appliances, or at least try to. However, this is actually putting technology in a bad light. It makes electricity look bad. Electricity has been a sign of human progress through the past few decades, and the progress of technology is equivalent to human progress. And this event might cause people to believe that technology and electricity is the Devil that has caused global warming. It is true that they have caused global warming, but they are merely tools of the Devil, which is actually us misusing them. Furthermore, I strongly believe that technology can solve this problem. Solar energy, wind energy and other alternatives that do not release carbon. And to make them cheaper and more affordable, technology is needed. I do not blame the organisers for this, as they did not meant this, but it is somewhat dangerous that people would get the wrong idea and the wrong message caused by this event.
Perhaps the best way to solve the environmental problem is to observe what we do not only during the Earth Hour. We should try and reduce carbon emission everyday. Turn off appliances that we do not need, observe the 3 R's, make sure the (right) message gets to people. Governments should also encourage research on alternative sources of energy, educate people. One hour is not enough, we need our whole lifetime.
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