Beyond 60 Minutes

In less than 15 minutes, it will be the official earth hour in Jakarta, Indonesia a place where the writer currently resides. This blog entry is made solely on the battery power of my laptop and without any other source of electricity. For the matter of publishing the writer is using a USB dongle of 3G internet service and hopefully it will reign on. 

Update: at least one of the building in Jakarta turning of their lights, which is kinda neat, but the rest…. 

Update 2: just heard some malls are actually turning off their lights cool although Malaysians are very daring to turn off the Petronas Twin Towers.

Update 3: The Flickr Photo Group have the picture of Jakarta during the Earth Hour, you can find it here. There is a very clear picture on Sampoerna Strategic Square turning their lights off and some other beautiful picture as well.

It is another earth hour this year, and unlike the previous one, tonight is backed by many organisation and public figures (in Jakarta), the message is very clear and concise, do something for mother earth and do it tonight by switching off the lights for 60 minutes. 

After that then?

The trend to care of the environment have been gradually increasing; we have seen many movies, lectures, seminars, and music concerts to address this awareness. However those all would meant nothing if the care for the environment is only present at that particular time. 

What’s next after earth hour? that’s the part that haven’t being explained by the organising committee of the earth hour, will people continue to their daily habit again and next year to do this same routine again, to vote earth again on 2010? I certainly hope not. The idea of voting for earth is not by just turning the lights off for 60 minutes during the earth hour only, the real deal is how to vote for earth everyday in our life. 

Sceptics of the earth hour and the global warming have something in common, their disbelieve of the event and the ability of people to keep up to vote earth. Although it is very simple to do something for the environment which can be done in their daily lives. Use the public transport, bring your own case when you’re taking away food, and simply, use less paper and many other things that we, ordinary people can do. 

Do not let this just become a trend, a media over-hype and just something people do to achieve credibility. So turn off your lights tonight, however the real business starts after this, change your daily habit and act beyond 60 minutes. Keep voting for earth.

 

Cheers

ps: just for the fun of it now I’ll shower in the dark

Support the system shall we?

As much as my own annoyance at the system, for it’s sometimes confusing, complex, and repetitive. I still feel there’s a need to support it, which could be done by improving the factor that is most likely to cause error in the system itself. the human factor.

A system in for collecting print jobs in Monash University Malaysia, which I view as a solution for creating order (one person could only take his/her print job and not others) and for the helping of environment (If one person get the print that he/she needed than there is no need to print another set of copies thus it does not waste the paper)has been failed considerably.

As the new semester kicks in the number of students increased considerably and many still don’t know how to collect the printing account (shown by many papers which are not collected by them at the end of the day), in which the explanation could be the information is not clear enough, or they are just plain ignorant (in which I hope they would change).

In the end, this is just a very small example in my life, there are larger problems in the world right now. I just hoped that, we all could support the system that is good, criticize ones that is had flaws, and taking the words of Mahatma Gandhi “be the change that you want to see in the world”.

Cheers

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Now playing: Pelle Carlberg – Middleclass Kid

I’m not a plastic, are you?

Few days back I was walking around to Suria KLCC and my mother decided to visit one of the high class fashion bag store Anya Hindmarch and I was interested that they had one of the “I’m not a plastic bag” bag which is going to be released for one time only on 6th of July 2007 in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan for a price of RM 55 only or about 16 US Dollar, this price when compared to a normal price bag which would have a price tag of RM 1000++ or 290 US Dollar seems like a perfect fashion accessories that you must have. However, there is a bigger story to it, the bag was actually a collaboration between Anya Hindmarch and We Are What We Do movement in order to make people to change their daily habit to eventually change the world to a better place.

What in the world came up to your mind when you heard the stories that people are willing to queue from 12 am in front of the shopping mall just to enter it at 6 am while the stores itself open at 10 am, that the bag was sold out for in 1.5 hours only, that the workers in the stores was trapped in the stores for 4 hours because the angry mob was blocking the store exits, that 1000 people had shown up just for a bag, that the workers are strongly advised to go back home without wearing anything that shows that they are working in the store because they feared that something would happen to them, that I looked up on eBay Hong Kong which had already listed the bag for a price of 3000 HK Dollar or about USD 384, far more than the actual value of the bag, that eBay Malaysia had also listed the bag for RM 350 and there is still no bid on it.

So what is it that drives people to buy the bag? is it to make yourself more plastic by buying that by having the latest and limited edition like being worn by Kiera Knightley while the bag itself saying that it is not a plastic bag. Why won’t they start to change their daily habit like being advised by the movement, and if they would want to contribute why won’t them buy something else from the movement?

In the end, I would just say congratulations to whoever had the bag, you’re now a part of movement to make the world better, and I would hoped that your actions did not stopped here but to continue further on.

Cheers