Saturday, March 28, 2009
Lights out in Tenerife
Facade of the Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (TEA), that will be in darkness for half and hour later tonight. Photo: by Mataparda. After the apagón (huge powercut) that left almost the entire island without electricity for several hours already on Thursday, March 26th, it's hard to imagine that Earth Hour will have many supporters willing to voluntarily switch off their luz (light / power) again on the island tonight. Or maybe Unelco's failures give even more reason for joining in.
As an aside, earliest reports suggested that Thursday's blackout had been caused by lightening striking a substation - may turn out to be their main power station at Las Caletillas (Candelaria). And whilst lightening is still given as a likely cause, in more recent reports, CEO of Unelco Endesa, Pablo Casado, says it will take them several weeks to to discover the cause of the incident.
Call me an old cynic if you like (and certainly, I'm not a member of the Unelco Fan Club), but from that, I have to wonder if they mean it will take them several weeks to come up with a [vaguely plausible] excuse to save admitting that they've failed, yet again, to make the necessary investments in installations or carry out maintenance, in order to provide a service of the quality that should reasonably be expected in this century and for the price.
Unelco were already sanctioned over their rusty old pylons that couldn't stand up the ravishes of stormy weather during Tropical Storm Delta in 2005.
There are those who criticize Earth Hour saying it's a meaningless gesture, others say Earth Hour Causes Global Warming, because if you use one candle for each extinguished light bulb, you’re essentially not cutting CO2 at all, or worse.
Nevertheless, Tenerife is joining in. Though hopefully not all as half-heartedly as the Cabildo (Tenerife Island Corporation), who it's reported here, will be switching off the lights on the Palacio Insular and the exterior facades of the Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (TEA), the Centro Internacional de Ferias y Congresos and the Auditorio de Tenerife for 30 minutes (between 8.30 p.m. and 9 p.m.) Earth Hour (small clue) an hour = 60 minutes!
Even if it is just a gesture it counts: it's an hour, which is not that long. Effectively saying we don't treat it seriously enough to go the whole way, or we can get away with only 50% commitment, set's what kind of example to people? Join in or don't, but doing it half-cocked, seems to me to only be taking the piss.
NB: Theoretically the switch-off will be going on at the same time in Tenerife as in the UK (from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.) and, equally, the clocks in Tenerife will also "spring" forward an hour tonight, doing islanders out of an hour of sleep.
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