The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is asking individuals, businesses, governments and organizations around the world to turn off their lights for one hour on Saturday, March 28, at 8:30 p.m. local time to make a global statement about the urgent need for action on climate change.
Observed annually, Earth Hour is expected to involve 950 cities in 80 countries this year. In the United States, Atlanta, Boulder, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., have already chosen to participate. Around the globe, the lights-out will turn some noted landmarks dark, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame in Paris, and the Sydney, Australia, Opera House.
The event began in Sydney in 2007. In 2008 more than 50 million people participated.
Toolkits are available from the Earth Hour web site for participants, including K-12 teachers and parents, individuals, corporations, and city and town governments. Artist Shepard Fairey, well known for his “Hope” poster of President Obama, created an Earth Hour poster, which is available for downloading from the toolkits site. It reads “Vote Earth. Your Light Switch Is Your Vote.” There are Earth Hour communities on all the main social sites on the web: Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace.
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The interesting thing about this years campaign is that, as we get into the home stretch with just over two weeks to go, there are over 1,000 cities involved with Earth Hour. A massive increase from last years number of around 370.
The billion people is still the biggest target, so everyone needs to join the Vote Earth community (live 13 March) on http://www.voteearth2009.org to have your say. Get your friends to join - encourage, push and beg. One billion people is a lot to get behind a campaign, but it will help with making a difference at Copenhagen.
To have a look at the campaign material go to:
http://tinyurl.com/av8df5
ttp://tinyurl.com/cy5grv