Sunday, May 5, 2013

Earth Hour


Earth Hour is an annual worldwide event organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It encourages households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour to raise awareness about the climate change and the need to take action on it.

The first Earth Hour was held in Sydney Australia on March 31, 2007. Over two million people and 2,100 businesses participated, and plans were developed to make Earth Hour a national event in Australia. International interest was also high and cities began signing up to the next Earth Hour campaign.

Earth Hour 2008 was held internationally on March 29, 2008, marking the first anniversary of the event. Earth Hour 2008 was celebrated on all seven continents in 35 countries. Landmarks all around the world turned off their non-essential lighting. A Zogby International online survey showed that there was a 4-percentage point increase in awareness of environmental issues after the event.

Earth Hour was held in Finland for the first time as a national event in 2009. 105 communes and hundreds of organizations participated, and according to a survey made by the WWF  51 percent of Finns switched off their lights. The event saved approximately 100 megawatt-hours of energy.

Earth Hour 2013 was celebrated on March 23, 2013. Earth hour 2014 is scheduled for Saturday, March 29, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. during participants' local time.

I think Earth Hour is a great way to both reduce power consumption for a while and raise awareness about the climate change. In fact, I don’t think it would hurt to organize the event even more often: maybe twice a year, for example. 

2 comments:

  1. Very good topic! I agree with you and I think Earth hour is a very easy way to do something good. I also agree that Earth hour could be organized more often. It is nice to see that people really care about our world and they turn off their lights. Every one wants to be a part of charity!

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  2. Couldn't agree more. It's a very easy way for everyone to do something eco-friendly. And it's true that it's so easy that it could be held more often. It also gives you the feeling that all the people are in this together. I bet that it looks unbelievable in bigger cities when you look outside your window and the whole city is completely dark.

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