Earth Hour - Saturday March 28th 2009

[Orion]

Earth Hour is an annual international event created by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund), held on the last Saturday of March, that asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Based on an idea successfully executed in Thailand in 2005, it was pioneered by WWF Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, and achieved worldwide participation in 2008.

Earth Hour will next take place on Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm, local time.



I really encourage all of you to participate in this event, it is after all only an hour and it would be nice to challenge ourselves and spend one hour without lights, TV , laptops... it is for a good cause especially that global warming is no longer something abstract, i think we all started feel its effects on the weather this year in Lebanon and probably in other parts of the world as well.

Have you ever participated in this event? are you planning to participate this year? Share your opinions.

[ronny]

"THIS SATURDAY 28 MARCH AT 8.30PM YOU CAN VOTE EARTH BY SWITCHING OFF YOUR LIGHTS FOR ONE HOUR - EARTH HOUR."

WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.

Vote Earth!

Earth Hour

[Frisbeetarian]

Oh and guys please dont do as the site says, to put up pictures and videos you took during the event on flicker and whatnot, thats just stupid and completely contradictory to the whole issue.

[fado]

Off course i am going to participate, all of Sweden is. This is a very important day, they have been promoting this day for months. Even on the milk boxes. Globen arena and our royal castle are going to go dark as well as many other things. I am going to light some candles and meditate for an hour

[FBM]

wala mneh here in lebanon kteer they are taking this seriously

[Orion]

(CNN) -- Lights were going out across the world on Saturday as millions of homes and businesses in major cities went dark for one hour in a symbolic gesture to highlight concerns over climate change.
In Australia, floodlights of the Sydney Opera House were extinguished as the city's iconic harbor kicked off events for Earth Hour, a day-long energy-saving marathon stretching through 88 countries and 24 time zones.

The event's Web site reported that hundreds of people lined the harbour for a glimpse of the dimming skyline at 8:30 pm -- the local time that nearly 4,000 participating cities around the world were expected to switch off non-essential lights.

Sydney became the birthplace of the Earth Hour campaign in 2007 when 2.2 million turned off their lights, igniting a grass roots movement that has become a global phenomenon.

In China, illuminations at major buildings including the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium and the Water Cube were extinguished as 20 cities joined in, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Other landmarks around the world expected to join the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored event were the Egyptian pyramids, Vatican, Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Acropolis in Athens and the Las Vegas casino strip.

Earth Hour events got off to an unofficial start in the remote Chatham Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean where locals switched off their diesel generators, organizers said. Shortly afterwards, 44 New Zealand cities and town joined in the event.

Organizers say they hope this year's event will send a message to world leaders meeting Copenhagen in December for a major summit on climate change.

"We are asking one billion people to take part in what is essentially the first global vote for action on climate change by turning off their lights for one hour and casting a vote for earth," said executive director Andy Ridley
Source


Beijing's "Bird's Nest" Stadium stands in darkness as thecity marks Earth Hour.



Fireworks explode near the Sydney Opera House at the conclusion of Earth Hour in Sydney, Saturday, March 29, 2008. Australia's largest city kicked off a global dimming when it turns off its lights Saturday night for one hour in an effort to combat climate change. Sydney is the first of more than 370 cities and towns in more than 35 countries from Fiji to Ireland to Canada to take part in Earth Hour, organizers said.



The Chicago skyline during the World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour event in Chicago, Saturday, March 29, 2008. The environmental group WWF urged governments, businesses and households to turn back to candle power for at least 60 minutes Saturday starting at 8 p.m. wherever they were. Several U.S. cities including Chicago and Atlanta participated and symbolic darkouts or dimmings of monuments. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)




The Sears Tower, second from left, leads the way by dimming the tower lights during the World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour event in Chicago

[Orion]

28 March 2009

BEIRUT: Lebanese concerned by climate change will join the global community on Saturday in marking Earth Hour, turning off all lights and appliances for one hour in a symbolic stand against global warming. Earth Hour was started in Australia by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 2007, with some 2.2 million homes and businesses participating. In just three years, it has become an international event held on the last Saturday of March, where households and businesses are urged to pause their energy consumption for one hour to raise awareness on the urgency of tackling climate change. More than 84 countries will participate in Earth Hour this year, going electricity free at 8:30 pm local time, plunging whole towns, neighborhoods and iconic skylines into darkness.

WWF has announced Earth Year 2009 as the first "global election," pitting global warming against the Earth. "For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote - Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming," Earth Hour's website said. The international organization hopes 1 billion people mark the occasion and will present their "votes" to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Denmark this December, where it a landmark international agreement to fight climate change could be signed.

But not everyone is convinced that Earth Hour can make a difference. "Although well intended, things like Earth Hour ... make us believe that we are to blame for the corporate and government greed that is the catalyst for pollution," said one reluctant participant on Earth Hour's Facebook group.

There was also some skepticism in Lebanon, which experiences daily power cuts of at least three hours. Jawad, a student, told The Daily Star Friday he would not participate part. "Why should I turn off my electricity when the government already forces us to live without it every day?"

Although the Lebanese endure a form of enforced Earth Hour every day, climate change is a real threat to their country. Lebanon's famous cedar trees, heavily reliant on snow and frost, were recently added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "Red List" as a "heavily threatened" species. "It's expected that within 50 years, Lebanon's snow will melt one month earlier," said Wael Hmaidan, executive director of Lebanese organization, IndyAct, citing a study by Universite de Sainte-Joseph. Speaking from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Hmaidan urged his Lebanese compatriots to participate in Earth Hour. "It's an important event, not for the amount of energy it saves, but for the awareness it raises and the pressure it puts on governments" to take immediate action on climate change, he said. Currently, Arab governments are not contributing "constructively" to negotiations on the issue. But at least a few more Arab cities are taking part this year: Abu Dhabi, Amman, Doha and Dubai have also promised to turn off their lights.
© Copyright The Daily Star 2009.

[Orion]

The Orange Room's Participation to Earth Hour 2009

[Orion]

Environmentalists hail Earth Hour as a big success

By VANESSA GERA – 13 hours ago

BONN, Germany (AP) — For environmental activists, the message was clear: Earth Hour was a huge success.

Now they say nations have a mandate to tackle climate change.

"The world said yes to climate action, now governments must follow," the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said Sunday, a day after hundreds of millions of people worldwide followed its call to turn off lights for a full hour.

From an Antarctic research base and the Great Pyramids of Egypt, from the Colosseum in Rome to the Empire State building in New York, illuminated patches of the globe went dark Saturday night to highlight the threat of climate change. Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries dimmed nonessential lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

WWF called the event, which began in Australia in 2007 and grew last year to 400 cities worldwide, "the world's first-ever global vote about the future of our planet."

The United Nations' top climate official, Yvo de Boer, called the event a clear sign that the world wants negotiators seeking a climate change agreement to set an ambitious course to fight global warming.

Talks in Bonn this week are the latest round in an effort to craft a deal to control emissions of the heat-trapping gases responsible for global warming. They are due to culminate in Copenhagen this December.

"Earth Hour was probably the largest public demonstration on climate change ever," de Boer told delegates from 175 nations. "Its aim was to tell every government representative to seal a deal in Copenhagen. The world's concerned citizens have given the negotiations an additional and very clear mandate."

Earth Hour officially began when the Chatham Islands, 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of New Zealand, switched off its diesel generators. It moved on through Asia, Europe and then crossed the Atlantic to North and South America.

"Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign," said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. "It's always around street parties, not street protests, it's the idea of hope, not despair. And I think that's something that's been incredibly important this year because there is so much despair around."

Associated Press writers around the world contributed to this report.