Earth Hour is an annual environmental awareness event of sorts, and this year's happened last night (Sat, 29 March). It's an event that is primarily symbolic - saving meaningful amounts of energy and resources definitely requires more than an hour of reduced electricity usage - but still, it's a platform that's as good as any for spreading important environmental messages to the masses.

To see its symbolic nature in Singapore, there's no better place to observe the lights go out than at Marina Bay (That's also where the official event was). The last time I had done this was five years ago, in 2009. It was before I had travelled to Sydney for my studies. This year's was the first one after my return.

For this year, they also had a superhero thing going; A bit gimmicky in my opinion, but I kinda see what they're trying to do (Plus it got Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and others here, so I'm not one to complain).

The actual switching off was expectedly anti-climatic, since there wasn't a single switch to turn off all the lights around the bay - Some buildings turned dark before the official countdown began, while others shone on like awkward beacons for several minutes after. In addition, it wasn't really all that dark, since the street lamps had to be kept on. Many of the hotel rooms also remained lit, as did some of the establishments around the bay.

To be fair, there was a definite difference in the amount of light. The two photos above aren't taken with the same settings (or at the exact same location, for that matter), so the difference doesn't look as great as it was. I also took a video clip of the countdown as it happened (Pardon the poor lighting/poor quality though ...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPP-eJLARvM

All in all, it is most important to remember the message that the event is bringing, as that's the main point of all the symbolism. So let us all work towards improving/reducing our energy usage, and live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Till the next time,

Raylen