April 14, 2014, by sustainablenottingham

Earth Hour @ UNMC

Students Mable Lim (year 1 environmental science) and Chen Siang Hui (year 2 chemical engineering) share the highlights of Earth Hour on The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.

The 4^th UNMC Earth Hour was held on 29^th March 2014 at the central plaza of UNMC. It was the largest turnout for an Earth Hour event at UNMC yet and the crowd was estimated some 350 strong.  A record number of students, alumni, staff and guests braved the elements to attend the Earth Hour carnival and candle-lit walk. Chen Siang Hui, the organising chairperson and president of Nature Club, and Mabel Lim Tze Jia, the vice organising chairperson and vice president of Nature Club, initiated the event to spread awareness of the need to save energy on campus. It took 4 months of planning and preparation, including a promotional video, by the tireless students of Nature Club.

The centrepiece of the carnival in the run-up to the lights-off hour was a stage where videos and songs about Earth Hour were played. The carnival also featured food stalls, green goods sales, games and two information booths where participants could pick up tips on how to save energy in their daily lives. The students manning the booths collected Earth Hour pledges from their peers to act more energy savvy in 2014 and beyond.

Just as the musical entertainment by UNMC’s band ‘The Indonesians’ was about to start, heavy rain threatened to stop the event. But the Earth Hour committee acted swiftly and converted the information booths into shelter for the audience, thus saving the day and the programme carried on smoothly with a performance by another well-loved UNMC band, the ‘Big Bad Sheep’, and an environmental quiz hosted by AIESEC.

Miraculously the raining stopped just before 8.30pm, when UMNC went dark alongside many homes, businesses and important landmarks worldwide. This symbolized the central message of Earth Hour that it is now imperative to actively fight climate change. The students, former students and other guests assembled to show their commitment to the cause, went on a candle-lit walk to remind the campus community that it is not up to governments and big business alone to reduce our energy impact, but that everybody can do something:  In this case, simply Switch Off!

After the candle-lit walk the crowd reassembled in front of the stage where Jason, a member of Nature Club, gave a solo performance before the entire committee ended the night with a grand finale of ‘Heal the world’ by Michael Jackson.

The event can be described as a resounding success, and the campus community would like to say a special thank you to the organising committee, especially Chen Siang Hui and Mabel Lim, and every volunteer and performer who made the Earth Hour Blue UNMC 2014 memorable and hopefully the start of a greener campus.

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