Last Saturday, while in Mumbai, I witnessed a power failure and ‘no-electricity’ condition in some places that I visited that evening (strange coincidence, I thought). I was kind of irritated and while sharing this distress with my friend, I came to know about an initiative “Mumbai Unplug: Batti Bandh”. However, my friend wasn’t sure about what it was either. I later found out that Mumbaikars can voluntarily switch off their electricity on Saturday for an hour from 7.30pm to 8.30pm. This was something that had derived its inspiration from Sydney’s “Earth Hour” concept, an initiative to fight against global warming.
Some articles in newspapers next day carried detailed information on the “Batti Bandh” initiative. However, all reported that the response to this initiative was poor with people participating only in few pockets of the city. Many corporate houses, restaurants, offices, residential complexes took part. However, hoardings, malls, and multiplexes remained brightly lit.
The participation will obviously be scanty because there was not much awareness among the people about this whole concept of “Batti Bandh” and more so about global warming for which all these efforts where being done. It is a pitiable fact that we all feel the heat but fail to understand what global warming is. And the remaining few who know what it is don’t really do anything about. Coming back to “Batti Bandh”, my friend was asking me (the same one who told me about “Batti Bandh”) what had switching off lights to do with reducing global warming. Quite a relevant question and I continued to clear his doubts, quoting something that I had read in Times of India. “On an average, the city consumes 550 MW of power on a Saturday between 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm. Even if only 10% of electricity consumption is reduced, 55 MW is conserved, which is equivalent to 37.8 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide not being emitted in the air. This, in turn, means 73,000 cars being taken off the road.” So imagine if 73000 cars reduced from the streets for an hour, the amount of pollution that can be controlled and hence the emissions that cause global warming. There is plenty to read and learn about global warming on the Internet (http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming). For a brief rundown on global warming refer to my earlier post on global warming.
I am sure that people will slowly understand and realise the threats of global warming and such initiatives will soon be a success. There should be more awareness programs that educate people about global warming and then volunteers to fight against global warming can be found in plenty.
Some articles in newspapers next day carried detailed information on the “Batti Bandh” initiative. However, all reported that the response to this initiative was poor with people participating only in few pockets of the city. Many corporate houses, restaurants, offices, residential complexes took part. However, hoardings, malls, and multiplexes remained brightly lit.
The participation will obviously be scanty because there was not much awareness among the people about this whole concept of “Batti Bandh” and more so about global warming for which all these efforts where being done. It is a pitiable fact that we all feel the heat but fail to understand what global warming is. And the remaining few who know what it is don’t really do anything about. Coming back to “Batti Bandh”, my friend was asking me (the same one who told me about “Batti Bandh”) what had switching off lights to do with reducing global warming. Quite a relevant question and I continued to clear his doubts, quoting something that I had read in Times of India. “On an average, the city consumes 550 MW of power on a Saturday between 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm. Even if only 10% of electricity consumption is reduced, 55 MW is conserved, which is equivalent to 37.8 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide not being emitted in the air. This, in turn, means 73,000 cars being taken off the road.” So imagine if 73000 cars reduced from the streets for an hour, the amount of pollution that can be controlled and hence the emissions that cause global warming. There is plenty to read and learn about global warming on the Internet (http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming). For a brief rundown on global warming refer to my earlier post on global warming.
I am sure that people will slowly understand and realise the threats of global warming and such initiatives will soon be a success. There should be more awareness programs that educate people about global warming and then volunteers to fight against global warming can be found in plenty.
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