‘The Earth Hour’ and no buzz about it around the campus:

Yesterday the 26^th of March 2011 between 20:30 and 21:30 hours was celebrated as the ‘Earth Hour’ worldwide. The ‘Earth Hour’ began as a show of solidarity against climate change and today has evolved into a major global movement.  It brings together people from all walks of life from different parts of the world to unite together in a mission to save our dear ‘Mother Earth’.

 I received a number of emails from companies and organizations from India with whom I had acquaintance that they will be celebrating ‘Earth Hour’ by switching off all lights on their campus during that designated hour. I study ‘Sustainable Energy Technology’ at TU Delft and this is a highly reputed master program. There is so much buzz and talk around the campus for developing sustainable energy technologies, to make the campus more greener and to make it more sustainable but sadly there was neither a news feed on the blackboard about the ‘Earth Hour’ nor any posters around the campus shouting out loud that TU Delft will be celebrating ‘Earth Hour’ to show its commitment against Climate Change. I began to wonder how TU Delft could miss out on this major event.

Well celebrating ‘Earth Hour’ is not a compulsion but we all can make small contributions to protect our dear planet by engaging ourselves in activities such as this. TU Delft has a completely dedicated organization ‘Energy Club’ to help coordinate projects/activities related to sustainable energy and climate change. No mention of this global event was mentioned on its website too. That is quite disheartening.

I celebrated the event by turning off all lights in my home and putting my laptop in sleep mode for that designated one hour. This event which started off in the city of Sydney in Australia in the year 2007 has become a major event worldwide since then with many countries/organizations embracing it worldwide and celebrating it, to show their responsibility towards protecting the environment.

Celebrating and embracing events like these would showcase to the outside world the university’s total commitment towards sustainability and care for the environment and such events must receive more attention around the campus.