What are your green initiatives for the day and going forward? I have to say I’m not the most green of all people, but I will try to be. It’s a conscious effort to live green, and I often forget as I go about my daily life the way I am used to. So it does take a bit of effort to remind myself to do things differently.

How about you, do you consciously make an effort to live green?

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Switch off your lights on Earth Hour day

Lately WWF has been promoting the coming Earth Hour day happening on 28 March. Earth Hour is a movement to get worldwide support to take action on the climate change. The method for people to participate and show their votes for this cause is to switch off their lights at their local time of 8.30pm, for an hour.

Apparently, millions of people as well as organisations around the world have agreed to switch off their lights to lend support to this cause. Even our very own KL Tower in the city will be going dark on that Saturday night. It’s still unsure if the KL Twin Towers will also join in the cause. It’ll be interesting to see the city skyscrapers in darkness.

What about you? Will you go lights off for an hour? If you do, watch out for the mosquitoes! They are dangerous these days, causing fatal diseases like dengue and Chikungunya.

If you would like to read more about Earth Hour 2009, visit the Earth Hour website for more information.

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Apparently, such punishments don’t work in today’s society. Nowadays, for petty crimes, the way to punish people and make them feel it is by embarrassing them. It looks like in today’s world, punishments are linked to a person’s emotions. We all have our pride and self esteem, and I suppose being publicly humiliated is something we find unacceptable. While some may take them lightly and pass them on as jokes, others may find it an emotional scar to be publicly humiliated.

What do you think of such punishments? Or would you rather prefer the old school punishment of a fine and doing time behind the bars?

Some examples of shameful punishments around the world are these:

It is widely known that in Singapore, if you are caught littering, you will be issued with Corrective Work Orders (CWO) and made to pick up litter in public places.

Even law enforcers themselves are not spared shameful punishments when caught not following the rules (this move should be applauded for no one should be above the law). In Thailand, some 2 years back, it was enforced that police officers who broke rules would have to wear a hot pink Hello Kitty arm band for the day. Apparently, the cute Hello Kitty is severe punishment to a macho guy! View picture below. Can you imagine any man feeling proud wearing this?!

And then there’s also the more severe punishments like death by hanging in public in some countries. This public punishment, I feel, is not just shameful for the person being punished, it is also for the family of the person being hung. After all, the person will no longer have to face the world and the people in it, it’s the family who has to bear the shame of the crime.

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Photo credit

At least the confines of the office is bigger than that in public transportation like buses and trains. If you take the train to work, then you would know how pack they can get during peak hours. It’s flesh to flesh most times and imagine you’re right next to someone who sneezes or coughs non-stop throughout the train ride. Worse still is when the person is unable to cover his or her mouth while sneezing or coughing to try to contain the spread of the bodily fluid to others!

What do you think? Do you agree that those who are sick should just take time off and spare others the risk of falling ill too?

Post from: Health or Money?