Earth Hour!

Okay before I start my entry today, allow me to update my Project 365 pictures.

Had lunch with Kim, Suanie and KY on Saturday. We ate at this Nasi Lemak place that had plastic tables and chairs extended out on to the road like a typical Mamak. Halfway through our lunch we heard a loud roaring sound approaching us from the distance.

We looked over to our right only to see a gigantic Alam Flora garbage truck.

In that moment of crisis I looked down at my half-eaten food to see if I could save it from being exposed to the stench that was going to be onto us in the next 30 seconds. I thought of running away with my plate but realized that I wouldn't get very far.

Defeated... I just took out my camera and snapped a picture of the garbage truck passing us with Kim holding her nose.

Project 365: Day 41, 28th March 2009

To make up for it, I made sure I ate dinner today somewhere indoors and away from all garbage trucks. Had dinner with Princess at Jake's in Starhill.

Project 365: Day 42, 29th March 2009

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Yesterday Princess and I took part in Earth Hour, something I once thought I would never do. I first heard about Earth Hour 1-2 years ago when it first started off. I heard about how people in some cities around the world were turning off their lights to show unity in fighting global warming and I thought it was a stupid idea.

What is the point of turning off your lights for one hour when each one of those cities were going to have their lights on the other 8,759 hours of the year? 

Then towards the end of last year Abinesh from WWF came over to my office to see me. He reintroduced Earth Hour to me and showed me this very inspiring video.

Then without me even having to ask he addressed a number of my concerns and doubt I had in my mind. I learned that it wasn't about the energy you save in that one hour (though that's pretty substantial considering the number of cities that take part all around the world). It was about all of us in the simplest possible way voicing out our concerns to World Leaders that we all think something had to be done about Global Warming.  

So if the whole city of Sydney shut off their lights then as a world leader you gotta know that this is some indication that the people of Sydney want something done because hey, if you don't give a shit about global warming then why suffer the discomfort of having your lights off for a full hour?

Some people say that Earth Hour is just a publicity stunt and they're right! It IS a publicity stunt aimed at getting the attention of everyone around the world, educating us and having us start discussions about Global Warming, that is if anything a good thing if you ask me. Even if you thought Earth Hour was a total waste of time, it did at least at one point make you think about global warming. 

WWF Malaysia won my support both personally and via Nuffnang Malaysia. Nuffnang served out ads to increase exposure of Earth Hour and Nuffnangers who supported it started writing about it on their own blogs. During Earth Hour, the Nuffnang Malaysia site was temporarily taken down in support of it.

On a personal level, I spent my Earth Hour at home with Princess. 5 minutes before 8.30PM, I turned off all the lights and Princess and I went out to the balcony to watch the lights of KL Tower go off.

At 8.30PM sharp it went off as planned but the joke was I looked at all the other apartment buildings around me and just about all of them still had their lights brightly on. One of my neighbours even had his apartment lit up so brightly it almost looked as if aliens from space just landed their flying saucer inside.

Princess sounded a bit defeated when she said

"I knew this wouldn't work in Malaysia".

After spending some 15 minutes on the balcony Princess and I went back into my room and lay in bed the remainder of the hour talking and laughing in the dark. We decided that the best way to avoid any accidents in the dark like knocking over something was to stay in bed as long as we can.

We took some pictures too.

At first we tried to take a picture without the camera flash.

But that obviously didn't work.

So we turned on the flash which temporarily blinded me.

If you're wondering why Princess looked a little pissed, it was because I took many many pictures trying to get a proper shot in the dark and she was getting very agitated by the flash. 

After Earth Hour I went over to my computer and left this on my Facebook only to have some of my friends immediately reply me.

Looks like there were a lot of other people out there who didn't take part too but I think Earth Hour is all just a matter of personal preference or belief. If you believe in it then great, if you don't then it's okay. Not taking part in Earth Hour doesn't in any way mean that you don't care about global warming and climate change.

To everyone who were part of Earth Hour and to WWF Malaysia, a job well done in pulling this together. Perhaps KL wasn't as dark as Sydney during Earth Hour but it certainly got a lot of people talking about global warming in these few weeks leading up to Earth Hour.

And that after all is what really matters... not how many lights we turned off in that hour, but how many people we get talking and thinking about global warming. Once the education process of it is done... then we're all in a much better position to take action against it.