Earth Hour

Hours, minutes and seconds before Earth Hour, I remember the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth where former US President candidate Al Gore talks about global warming and its impact to every aspect of human life as we know it. I remember him using the lift in order to indicate the high rising of carbon dioxide emissions, the heat level in the atmosphere, talking about the weather changes and how, through a pattern of time, we have managed to accelerate it.

I remember too National Geographic’s documentary titled 6 Degrees Could Change the World and how people from different countries, who had little to do with global warming, who had barely consumed energy or produced carbon dioxide emissions, are the one who are experiencing the brisk changes; and how they are placed on the very forefront of global warming’s ugly effects.

And so, while I remember all these things, while I recall Lisa Simpson on the lift (in Simpsons the Movie) in imitation of Al Gore, while pictures of melting ice and glaciers flood my mind, I began to think of other worse nightmares that might come to life just because we didn’t care about the diminishing polar ice caps or the polar bears that are being endangered of drowning.

Quite ironic, isn’t it?

And while it is still unsure whether this phenomena (if we dare call it that) is reversible, the best we can do right now is to educate ourselves little by little. And with that understanding, we can resort to lessening our carbon footprints, reducing our energy consumption, and conserving our environment in the very little ways we know how.

Earth Hour is just that – a small hour that can spell a difference.

It is a small hour that we could have used up surfing through various channels on the television instead of just talking to another person and having a real conversation. It is just another hour that we could have spent on playing video games when we could have had the chance to read a really good book and used our own imagination. So what’s in an hour really?

It is the hour we don’t spend in order save ourselves.

And so, the age-old adage proves itself – You save what you don’t spend. And it goes to apply itself even further in the things we buy but do not need.

We can go on about saving electricity by turning lights off, but what the products we buy that required electricity to produce? Maybe it is also about time we think of switching to certain things, changing old ways and habits, and think better about how we do our shopping.

Why not fluorescent lights? Why not range free chicken? Why not organic food? Why not digital printing? Why not recycled paper?

Why not?

Why not!

Tags: digital, earth, hour, printing