KOLLAM: In keeping with the Government of India’s official support to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-promoted ‘Earth Hour’ from 8.30 p.m. (local time) on Saturday, the State, through the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), will participate in the event by switching off lights for one hour.
As of Thursday, 21,014 business establishments, 6,299 other organisations, 2,848 cities and towns and 8,742 educational institutions from 84 countries will observe ‘Earth Hour’ by switching off lights to join the first global election between earth and global warming.
Listed buildings in various countries will go dark during the hour. A decision on the listed buildings in the State will be taken on Friday.
KSEB chief engineer K. Radhakrishnan told The Hindu that the board’s officers and staff were already involved in spreading the Earth Hour message. He said domestic consumers were being asked to switch off lights and commercial consumers to turn off display and fancy lights during the hour.
He said the KSEB was also in touch with big business establishments and civic bodies to complement the Earth Hour endeavour.
While streetlights would not be switched off, all prominent lighting fixtures, including high mast towers and ornamental lights, would be turned off.
Conservation
Dharesan Unnithan, director of Energy Management Centre (EMC), said apart from its regular classes to promote energy conservation, the EMC would conduct 150 special classes across the State on Saturday to spread awareness of the need to participate in the Earth Hour.
Energy conservation expert and managing director of Foam Mattings (India) Ltd. S. Ratnakumar, who in 2002 pioneered the campaign ‘switch off lights and avoid power cuts,’ said he was happy to know that the KSEB has decided to participate in the Earth Hour. At the same time, though the Earth Hour initiative was a symbolic one, the people should make it a habit to switch off all non-essential lights and avoidable appliances, he said.
According to the WWF campaign, switching off lights was a vote for earth. The WWF aims at a target of one billion such votes on Saturday. These votes will be presented to the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held at Copenhagen in December.
Representatives of various countries will take part in the conference to determine official government policies to take action against global warming.
