Celebrating Earth Hour the Singapore way

Earth Hour seems to be a bigger and bigger affair each year. This year, instead of turning off our lights for the event, my wife and I celebrated it together with friends.

In case you don't know what Earth Hour is, homes, buildings, shopping malls, national monuments and landmarks island-wide were to turn off their non-essential lights for an hour at 8.30pm on March 27, 2010 as part of this energy-saving campaign.

Our host, Miss "Towkay Neo" (TKN, a local nickname meaning "lady boss"), sent out her email to our circle of friends, inviting us to her home to observe this momentous occasion with finger food, fruits and ice-cream. Her only rule was "no lights means no fan, no aircon, no electricity to be used in any form" but we were allowed to use things that use batteries, like a camera.

"We are going to go to TKN's house by train, dear," I declared to my wife in a self-righteous tone.

"We're not driving?" the wife said, looking a little pained.

"Of course not. It does not seem right to be driving a car to a friend's house to observe Earth Hour, right?"

So off to the MRT station we went.

Miss TKN's house was already dark when we got there. Only candles gave the flat any light. Our gracious host had a table of snacks prepared. "Welcome!" she said, quickly followed by that universal Singaporean greeting, "Eat, eat!"

We tucked in to the strawberries and potato chips, and she also told us to try the ice-cream before it melted.

When I mentioned this via Twitter, someone commented that it was ecologically irresponsible of us to eat strawberries because they must have been airflown and that particular brand of ice-cream was airflown AND kept frozen.

I felt an overwhelming sense of shame at my sacrilegious behavior and looked at my clothes, wondering if I should take them off too, since my t-shirt was also airflown from Threadless.com (also it was incredibly warm in the flat without the fan on). But I doubt if any of my friends wanted to see me in the buff, even with the lights off.

I did take the trouble to pick out a t-shirt that had a Save the Earth theme on it, if that was any consolation.

We left the lights off longer than the one hour. It seemed more fun anyway, talking by candlelight. Someone asked if I brought any movies along but I told them Miss TKN had banned us from watching TV, remember?

But we did have a guitar in the house (not sure if it was airflown or whether it was made from the wood of any endangered trees or not) so we took turns playing the guitar and singing, kind of an unplugged karaoke session.

It is a good thing Earth Hour 2010 did not fall on the same night as the Formula 1 race. Although I feel that the world's only F1 Night Race would be way more exciting if Alonso, Hamilton and co had to drive in the dark. Anyone can drive fast on a street circuit lit up as bright as day but it takes a real champion to drive at 300kmph while they can only see 20 meters in front of them.

Or we could have a day race and the cars can only be powered by solar panels. If they run out of juice, the drivers will have to "Flintstone" it with their feet. It will be a hoot, I tell you.

I feel that other sports events would benefit from an Earth Hour treatment. Like Singapore soccer. For an hour, no one will need to watch how bad Singapore football is, as they play in the darkness. 

I read in the papers (recycled, of course) that the Singapore government is pumping millions into putting Singapore among the top ten footballing countries in Asia by 2015.

I remember not that long ago, they announced that we were aiming to qualify for the 2010 World Cup. It is now 2010, and not only are we not anywhere near the World Cup, it is highly likely we are not able to even watch it because the local subscription channels could not secure the broadcast rights from FIFA.

From World Cup qualifier to maybe top 10 in Asia -- you can say that our country is now aiming somewhat lower. Frankly, I think we should just aim to get the broadcast rights to watch the damn thing. 

Or the Singapore government could just tell Singaporeans that for the entire World Cup season, we are planning to observe Earth Hour every time there is a match, which means we can't show you anything. At least, it will make us feel like we are giving up our matches for a good cause.