Lights out, take a deep breath
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 
Eight-thirty P.M. on Saturday approached like company towards the door. We scrambled to pull a late dinner together, find the candles and the matches. Bowls of green curry (from a packet, I’ll admit), chicken and rice in hand, the last task was to find the light switches. Flick. Darkness all through the house and out onto the back patio, speckled only by a few tea lights on the table. The family in number 46, two doors down, also huddled around an array of candles in their back yard. “Earth Hour?” I called out to them. One of their young teenage boys came over to the fence, his face in deep chiaroscuro. “Yes!” he said excitedly. “We’re eating by candlelight.” “Us too.” “Cool!”
Our neighborhood only halfheartedly partook in this the latest worldwide movement to raise awareness about the warming earth: one hour of voluntary darkness at 8:30pm across the globe. The lights were blazing at the nearby sports complex and another house I could see had four rooms lit up and the TV flickering in one. But around Singapore, the hour was apparently a hit. The financial district went dark (see above, courtesy of Earth Hour). About 2,000 people gathered on the waterfront to watch. Colleagues described a candlelit pool and snacks party at their condo in central Singapore.
I was struck by how peaceful it felt. No movies, no computer, nothing to read, and what’s more the darkness seemed to be settling. Our voices lowered, the way they do around a campfire. Indeed, the city’s voice seemed to lower with the lights. I remember how frustrating the nightly blackouts were when they rolled through an Aceh province short of power during the hot, sticky months of July and August 2007. But now that the hour was chosen, and (somewhat) planned for, it made all the difference.
I have heard a few environmentalists, notably Bill McKibben, say that many of the constraints we will face in the coming decades because of resource scarcity will also present opportunities in the developed world to restore our sanity. During this Earth Hour, I couldn’t agree more.