Today is the annual Earth Hour celebration, and I had completely forgot about it until I saw a notification on my tablet just a few hours ago. Anyway, this is a great event that I really like, and I will certainly be participating later tonight. Hopefully some of you are joining as well, and if you don't know what it is, then keep on reading.
What exactly is Earth Hour?
Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007 where it was a symbolic lights-out event to raise awareness for the environment and all the challenges it is facing. Ever since it has kept growing, and it is now a world-wide event that is held every single year.
Anyone can participate by simply turning off all your electric lights at 20:30 tonight, and keeping it off for one hour. I now realize that some of you might live in a place where the time has already passed, and in that case I'm sorry that I didn't post this earlier. It's 8.30 in local time, so the event is held pretty much constantly around the world today.
Anyway, keep the lights off for an entire hour to show your symbolic support for the issues the environment is facing because of climate change and other man-made problems, and join in on the conversation on how we can create a better, more sustainable future together.
For people who live in larger cities, there could potentially be an Earth Hour event somewhere close, which would probably be really cool to attend. You can look for events close to you by following this link.
The Earth Hour event is hosted by WWF, but is registered as an independent charity. However, it is really a grassroots movement that people organically joined after the event in Sydney back in 2007.
Connect2Earth
This year's slogan is #Connect2Earth, and it is all about creating a sustainable future by changing the way we act. The focus is on getting everyone to be aware of their actions and how it affects the environment, and hopefully some people will even take a closer look at this and change some habits for the better.
Over 3,100 landmarks are joining in
Not only can we regular people join Earth Hour, but big landmarks such as the Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower will join in by turning off their lights at 8.30PM tonight. This has a huge symbolic value in my opinion, and is a great source for media coverage of the event.
Rome Colosseum turned off the lights for earth hour. The photo is from Earth Hour 2008. Image by saveourclimate, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Thanks for reading
I hope some of you plan on joining Earth Hour today. I plan on turning off all lights and rather use candles for the duration of the event, which also makes for a really nice and cozy night. Let me know if you plan on joining tonight, or if you joined earlier (for those of you who are past 8.30PM).