An hour's not enough to alter attitudes

An hour's not enough to alter attitudes

On the last Saturday of March, for the past five years, Bangkokians and residents of many other cities around the world have participated in a voluntary power blackout.

Dubbed "Earth Hour", part of an environmental campaign to make people realise how much energy they use unnecessarily, it involves individuals and organisations around the world turning off lights, TVs, computers and other electrical equipment and then leaving them off for one hour. It is meant to get the message across that we, citizens of the Earth, have the ability to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming and climate change.

Earth Hour will be marked in Bangkok and elsewhere in the Kingdom tomorrow, from 8:30 to 9:30pm. Various dignitaries will be gathering in front of the CentralWorld building at Ratchaprasong intersection to launch the event with much fanfare. In addition to many thousands of ordinary householders, scores of large buildings owned by government agencies and the private sector are also expected to take part in the mass switch-off.

The inaugural Earth Hour was held in Sydney on March 31, 2007 and the idea has gained more and more adherents with each passing year. In 2011, 1.8 billion people living in 522 towns and cities in 135 countries joined in.

Doing without power for one hour saves a huge amount of energy. During the 2010 "big flick" in Thailand, 1,423 megawatts of electricity, which would have created an estimated 894 tonnes of emissions and cost consumers a total of 4.8 million baht, were spared. This large saving was achieved despite the fact that the campaign was only moderately popular here that year and not that many commercial buildings in Bangkok took part.

We Thais seem reluctant to do without electricity, even for a mere 60 minutes. When local environmentalists appealed for people to participate in Earth Hour back in 2007, I remember this newspaper carrying a report that some Bangkokians feared the blackout would give rise to looting and a rash of burglaries.

Even now, five years on, a lot of Thais still haven't heard about Earth Hour. How many malls and department stores in Thailand will turn off their lights at 8:30 tomorrow night, I wonder. I won't be terribly surprised if only a handful do so. I expect it'll be business as usual for most Bangkokians who wouldn't want their shopping, eating out or cinema-going interrupted even for one hour.

I was a teenager back in the 1970s when the first oil crisis caused shock waves across the world. I remember the government of the day trying to persuade the general public to turn off unnecessary lights and electrical appliances. An Oil Fund was set up which is still active. Energy-saving was considered vital at that time and so became one of the top national priorities.

I also remember a government TV campaign that tried to make viewers, especially youngsters, aware that the country's energy resources were scarce so it was very important to conserve as much power as possible. Later, Egat (the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand) launched a nationwide appeal, asking every household to turn off one light bulb per night and to leave it off for an extended period. Egat would then regularly publicise figures for the drop in energy consumption caused by this collective drive. The campaign was a huge success and I remember many people being amazed at the amount of power that could be saved by such a minimal effort. I never understood why the Egat campaign was later discontinued. Perhaps we had simply got used to paying higher prices for imported oil, or perhaps the authorities thought they could just build a few more generating plants or import heaps of electricity from a neighbouring country. Or perhaps they were clinging to the hope that approval would be granted one day to construct the Kingdom's first nuclear power plant?

We no longer seem to fear blackouts _ involuntary outages, that is, caused by accidents, unexpected surges in demand or other glitches. We just hate them because we think they make the nation look backward and because of the economic losses they can inflict. Earth Hour is supposed to make us realise that we should take personal responsibility for the future of the planet we live on. But unless public attitudes change drastically here, I feel that the "big flick" will never be anything more than a symbolic gesture.

To get the message across more effectively, I think we need to have something like Earth Hour on a monthly basis, not just once a year. And instead of a complete blackout, perhaps we could just forgo a few lights, or the television or electrical appliances in the kitchen for the same period of time.

Personally, I believe that Earth Hour would be most effective in changing attitudes to power consumption and waste if we were to do it on a daily basis. And it could be conducted in a much simpler way, too. It might take the form of teaching children to get into the habit of turning off unnecessary lights, unplugging chargers that are not being used, not leaving the TV in standby mode when they go to bed, etc.

In fact, we could all make a fresh start, beginning tomorrow night. Candlelit dinner, anybody?


Anchalee Kongrut is a feature writer for the Bangkok Post.

Anchalee Kongrut

Editorial pages editor

Anchalee Kongrut is Bangkok Post's editorial pages editor.

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