And Let There Be No Light
And Let There Be No Light.
City of Lights, a name we have claimed for ourselves in a region of power shortages, outages and brown-outs. Hong Kong has the highest number of neon lights in the region.
It is said August 8, the double 8s, of 2006 has been slated for light-out.
City of Darkness. Let’s do it.
Switch off all the lights except the essential ones, those needed for hospitals, traffic, air-control. Turn off the “neons.” Off with the lights in restaurants, offices, and homes. Yes, let’s plunge this polluted island into darkness for 5 to 10 minutes at sunset.
Drastic measure, drastic situation.
Yesterday, late afternoon, a huge pall of fog came up from the sea and obliterated the mountains of New Territory before moving in to blot out Central, Wan Chai, and Causeway Bay, bringing dusk too early, causing alarm.
People walk around wearing masks or with hands over their noses and mouths. News readers tell us not to our allow children out of class rooms, and the elderly and the sick are told not to go out of their homes. Hospitals fully occupied, doctors overworked, waiting rooms overflow. Children, lethargic, sit around in adult clinics, no room at the paediatrician. Sounds like science fiction, but science fiction it is not. It is Hong Kong in the throes of unprecedented pollution.
“Oh, what can we do,” say the politicians, wringing their manicured hands.
“The tourists won’t be coming to fill our coffers.” How illogical, how thoughtless! Can we first make sure our citizens are healthy before worrying about the tourists? Dead citizens cannot be there to receive them when the tourists decide to come.
Let us not take heart in the fact that other cities of the world are more polluted. Neither does it help us when we lie to ourselves by setting standards different from international ones, to measure low when moderate, moderate when high or severe.
Hong Kong is an island but pollution is not. Improving our air quality lies not only with us but also with our neighbours. Our own pollution constitutes about 30 % and the rest, that affects us, is from our immediate neighbours. To the north of us lies the vast continent, our mother-land. The regional air now is so heavy with pollutants that prevailing winds do not disperse our emissions any more. Let us not waste time and energy in blame. The authorities of all neighbouring regions must get together and sort this out, and now.
Let the silent and dark protest begin. Let us switch off the lights on August 8.
Subscribe to RSS feed
What a wonderful idea — except I thought you were going to propose all night. My bet though is that the small minority who elevate pollution into violated principle as opposed to most who see it as a personal inconvenience, but not something to move them into acting inconveniently, will switch out their lights. But you never know — 1,000,000 HKers took to the streets only a year or so ago. But even then you’re only attacking 30% of the problem.
I tend to be pessimistic over protests, as a worn out campaigner against the destruction of Tasmania’s old growth forests. The corporations buy the Government and there’s an end to it — the chances of successful campaigning I mean, not the logging.