In recent years with rapid urbanisation and changing lifestyles, environment has become a serious concern. Climate Change is a major issue. Several movements were started to safeguard the environment. Outreach and public awareness is a definite focus of all such initiatives. Earth Hour is one such initiative. It started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia as a lights-off event by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Earth Hour is the world’s largest grassroots environmental movement towards action on climate change; and it involves a simple action: switching off the lights for one hour every year in March. Earth Hour 2015 will be observed across the globe on Saturday, 29 March 2015. The most widely used time is 8:30PM to 9:30PM. Over the few years the movement has spread to all the continents with the observance in some ten thousand cities.
Earth Hour is a global initiative aimed at highlighting environmental sustainability and promoting the rational use of electricity. Earth Hour is WWF’s global campaign inspiring governments, businesses, communities and individuals to take a stand against Climate Change. It is that one crucial hour uniting the world and building synergies through the collective action of switching off non-essential lights in celebration of life and our planet. With each passing year, Earth Hour is becoming more than just an hour, more than just an action: it is becoming a movement and a platform. Earth Hour has inspired concrete changes in the environmental policies in several countries.
EARTH HOUR IN INDIA
When India first joined the Earth Hour movement in 2009, 5 million Indians across 56 cities showed their support by switching off non-essential lights and saving approximately 1,000 MW of power in one hour. The figures have only grown in the following years. Last year too, Earth Hour was observed across various cities in India. Lights of illuminated monuments such as Gateway of India and Chhatrapathi Shivaji Terminus railway station in Mumbai; India Gate in New Delhi; the Howrah Bridge in Kolkata; and the presidential palace Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi plunged into darkness during the Earth Hour. Hotels and corporate houses also took part in the movement by switching off the lights.
ISLAM AND ENVIRONMENT
Islam expresses great concern for environment. A number of verses in the Qur’ān and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) have addressed the issue of environment. Islam encourages people to protect the earth and all life on it, and to maintain the balance in nature as created by Allah. Islam’s solution to environmental problems lies in man’s adaptation of its guidance.
Allah has stated that He made all the material objects on earth for man’s use, not for his abuse. In Islam the utilisation of these resources is the right and privilege of all people and all species. Hence, every person should take every precaution to ensure the interests and rights of all others since they are equal partners on earth. And this partnership is over the generations. It is a joint responsibility in which each generation uses and makes the best use of nature, according to its need, without disrupting or adversely affecting the interests of future generations. Thereby there is a restriction on possible abuse or misuse of natural resources by a particular generation. Each generation is entitled to benefit from the natural resources but is not entitled to “own” the natural resources in the absolute sense.
Extravagance in using water is forbidden; this applies to private use as well as public, and whether water is scarce or abundant. It is related that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) enjoined the believers “not to waste water even if one is by a flowing river”.
Environmental awareness and protection of natural resource is an integral part of Islamic beliefs. There is something that we can all do and should try to do. First is to practise the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. We can increase awareness of about our duty of care for the whole of creation amongst our family and peers. We need to be conscious about the care of the environment in all spheres of our life. Otherwise the events like the Earth Hour would not fully serve the purpose.
[The writer teaches at Engineering Department, Salalah College of Technology (SCT), Salalah, Sultanate of Oman. [email protected]]