I am running late with my postings due to Exams and travels in March and Early April. Here?s a short report on my Earth Hour activities. I am also sharing my essay on "How to motivate people to conserve energy".

Short report on my Earth Hour activities

For the past few years I have been participating in Earth Hour either at a personal level or in community events. The worldwide movement organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) aims to encourage individuals, communities, households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on the last Saturday of March, as a symbol for their commitment to the planet. The idea is to spread awareness towards conservation of energy.

This year Earth Hour was observed on 25^th March 2017. Coincidently, I travelled that day to India and reached my grandfather?s apartment in the evening, just a half an hour before the scheduled Earth hour time of 8:30PM. To my pleasant surprise, my 85 year old grandfather told me to freshen up quickly as he was going to switch off the lights shortly. It was reassuring to know that young and old, all are getting aware of the burning issue of conserving energy and taking steps to bring about a change.

My grandfather lives in a 4 storey apartment building. He has taken a lot of effort to create a garden on the rooftop of this building. We spent the Earth hour lounging in his rooftop garden in dim aura of solar lights. It was a surreal experience that I would love to relive anytime. The rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze and the dim starlit night, added to the feeling of satisfaction that came from celebrating Earth hour with my grandpa!

The photographs are not very clear due to dim light.

ESSAY- "How to motivate people to conserve energy?"

We donot need to motivate people to breathe or to eat or drink, but we are looking for ways to motivate them to conserve energy or to use electricity judiciously. Why?

The answer to this question can lead to the solution to how we can motivate people to conserve energy.

An Indian by origin, I reside in the United Arab Emirates, a country that has seen exponential growth in the last two decades. Certainly this growth has been accompanied by a substantial increase in the energy consumption of the country. Today, energy conservation is an important part of the government agenda. However, a majority of the population, though well informed about the issue in general, is blissfully unaware and unconcerned about the impending need for energy conservation, simply because their current needs are being met.

Recently, due to a major breakdown, there was a power shutdown in the building where I reside. For the first time in my thirteen years of life, there was no electric supply in my home for over nine hours, including the whole night.

It was as if life had come to a standstill. The computer was not working. The mobile phone could not be charged. The air conditioner was switched off. The whole house was shrouded in darkness. There was no emergency lighting or generators or invertors, like I had seen in my grandfather?s home in India where power cuts are frequent. Having never faced power outage in UAE, residents are not prepared for such situations. Some oil lamps left over from festival celebrations came in handy, to dispel the darkness.

An active environmentalist, I was well aware of the importance of energy conservation. Furthermore, I have been religiously participating in ?Earth hour? year after year. But nothing had prepared me for such a nuisance. It was a big inconvenience, as I had a school project to finish. Obviously I was very upset. Hearing my vociferous complaints and lamenting, my mother called me out to walk with her.

While we strolled, she described to me that while she grew up, her city had a shortage of power and the entire city faced power cuts staggered throughout the day. Candlelight dinners were not a luxury but a necessity. She also recalled instances when she had to finish school work in dim candlelight or memorize her lessons under the moon. More importantly, she explained that the whole household used to plan their work keeping the power cut in mind. The hours without electricity were allocated to activities that could be managed without it, such as cooking in the kitchen or mopping the house, or playing outdoors and so on. While I was still trying to comprehend the hardships she would have faced without electricity, she reminded me of the many areas where people live without electricity, even till today.

The next day after power was restored in my home I realized how difficult it had been for me to spend nine hours without electricity. Those nine hours made me understand the importance of power conservation more than any awareness program that I had been involved with. While I recognize the significance of awareness drives to educate the masses, I feel that we learn more from our experiences than from theoretical or symbolic campaigns.

We learn a lot in school. However, besides books, classroom interactions and teaching aids, when it comes to matters of importance, even schools follow a system of two R's- Rewards and Reprimands!

Any awareness drives or educational efforts to drive home the message of energy conservation can be greatly supplemented by the two R?s.

Local authorities should initiate programs to identify a fair per capita usage value. Thereafter they should regularly monitor individual household/business energy consumption and appreciate consumers who reduce usage over stipulated time spans, as well as charge high usage with higher rates. Incentives by way of shopping vouchers and discounts at local stores and sanctions by way of taxation or addition power cuts, can help reduce consumption.

Furthermore, like data packages for mobile phones, if electricity also comes in prepaid bundle deals, it can possibly help people keep tabs in their usage and minimize wastage.

Additionally, an hourly power cut on a regular basis or one day in the month without electricity can not only contribute to saving energy, but also prove useful in making people feel the pinch of living without electricity- and make them value this resource to the extent of cutting down its wastage.

When something is available easily and in abundance, more than often we tend to ignore its value. Keeping this in mind, I conclude with the idea that occasionally making people face a life without energy can go a long way in motivating them to conserve it.