Earth Hour - Why Only For One Hour Once A Year?

For one hour this Saturday night, 8:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. the country will be plunged in darkness.

No it will not be another nationwide blackout - I hope - but rather a planned simultaneous turning off of all non-essential lights and electric appliances from the tip of northern Luzon all the way down to Tawi Tawi.

This is part of the Earth Hour, an international movement to save Mother Earth. By the simple act of turning off the lights it supposedly sends a powerful message to everyone that we are all united to saving our planet.

And we are proud of our record. We were tops last year with over 10 million of us Filipinos participating.

Tonight it will be 15 million - at least that's the pledged number of participants.

Ah the hypocrisy of it all.

I have no problem with Earth Hour. I support it 100% and I will also be turning off non-essentials tonight for one hour.

That being said why turn off non-essential electric use for only one hour once a year? Why not make a pledge to turn it off everyday when it is not needed or in use?

Isn't that a better statement other than this promise to not use electricity for one hour but once it's over we go back to have everything running even when no one is using it.

Saving on electricity is all well and good but that's not all.

Why not go for less vehicles on the road?

Why not plant more trees and make sure the punishment for illegal logging is tough - I would like the death penalty but that's just me.

Earth Hour is needed but it doesn't mean much if we make up for the one hour of not using electricity by doubling our consumption the following hour.

We really need to conserve energy because as we all have experienced our power supply isn't exactly up to par.

Do we need to have the 12 hour blackouts like we did during the nineties to wake up and do something? After all isn't it human nature to do something when we feel the loss but it's already too late to do anything.

Let's not wait for that to happen. Do Earth Hour everyday. We only have one planet. Let's do everything we can to save it. Politics be damned.