Earth Day or Social Day?

This was a late post about Earth Day. Basically, earth day intended to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth's environment. Lately, i saw lots of event in Kota Kinabalu that was inspired by the awareness to environmental protection such as Earth Hour and Freeze For the World Earth Day that i can't find its official website but merely a general explanation. Earth Hour basically needs us to turn off all our electrical equipment for an hour and in return burn candle light to save energy. Freeze for the World Earth Day need us to not moving for five minutes and it was believe to conserve a significant amount of energy.

I believe these events have its good intention but to be sure, how many people really benefited or learned about the environment from this. I don't propagated myself as an environmentalist activist because i waste lots of electricity with my computers and burn lots of carbon while driving my old carburetor enhanced car. I aware and admit that our earth is in danger of changing because all the activities that polluted and destroyed the environment, but does these events spread any information to people who attend and join it?

I read on minishorts who was criticizing this even especially the Freeze for the Earth Day. By picking one interesting example from the big double standard corporate, she really was kicking some sense to me. In KK and KL, Freeze for the Earth Day got a decent reception as well. Thou, what I found out that lot of photo were taken on this events and I couldn't find any information awareness about the environmental in this event except tell all people it can save energy. How we save energy when we use most of the energy at night. People was driving to the event and the avenue air conditioning running at full to accommodate the people.

There are lots of environmental awareness events in Malaysia and why not these attracting more people? An article in WWF Malaysia website really said it all as I quote.

Earth Day is the most significant event in the global environmental calendar. It was born out of the dialectical movements of the late 60s and 70s, at a time when people were protesting against the Vietnam War, against environmental pillages, and against man’s prejudice towards his brethren.

But is Earth Day a mere symbolic day for celebration? For that matter, is Merdeka Day just another day for celebration? Certainly yes, but celebration should be backed with action, and not mere reflection. Decades back, a self-searching soul draped in a loincloth projected his reflections to shake the foundations of the greatest empire ever.

Freeze for the Earth day seems a celebration of reflection and not action. It looks more like a social event rather about Earth. Nothing was done to utilized this event and spread the information about the environmental awareness to the participant. No slides and lecture about what we can do in our part to decrease the impact to the environment. 5 minutes was wasted without doing anything. Maybe it is not fair for me to criticize this particular event because I’m no environmentalist myself. At least they can do is add some important and information event such as a forum and talk from WWF environmentalist representative about the situation of our environment today. This will bring more action and awareness to people and at the same time save the forest and save the world we living.