Why Do Lights Go out During Earth Hour?
Why Do Lights Go out During Earth Hour? Earth Hour is a global event organized by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature, also known as World Wildlife Fund) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.
Earth Hour 2017 took place at 8:30pm GMT on Saturday March 25. This year teams around the world used the movement to shine a light on the climate issue most relevant in their country or region. In Brazil, people asked to support protection of one of the country’s many biodiversity hotspots from climate change, while citizens in South Africa focused on renewable energy. In China, WWF encouraged businesses to shift toward sustainable lifestyles.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of Earth Hour which started back as a symbolic event in 2007 in Sydney, Australia. The UK got involved a year later and it has since spread around the world. Siddarth Das, executive director at Earth Hour Global, said: “We started Earth Hour in 2007 to show leaders that climate change was an issue people cared about. “For that symbolic moment to turn into the global movement it is today, is really humbling and speaks volumes about the powerful role of people in issues that affect their lives.”
Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off for one hour to take a stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries/territories participating.
Global landmarks such as the Sydney Harbor Bridge, CN Tower in Toronto, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour. Every year thousands of landmarks across the globe switch off their lights in the world’s biggest annual environmental event. Called Earth Hour, it’s organised by conservation organisation WWF.
Last year, millions of people across 178 countries supported the action as a sign that they care about the future of the environment, more than 10.4 million people in Britain joined in with the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, The Shard, The Ritz hotel , Old Trafford and Edinburgh Castle among the landmarks which dimmed their lights.
Across the world more than 350 landmarks from New York to Beijing disappeared from view between 8:30pm and 9:30pm local time, including the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and Tokyo Tower.