Celebrate Earth Hour 2013 on March 23

Earth Hour. It started out as a simple idea. Pretty soon it became a worldwide phenomenon. It’s an easy thing to do – turn off all unnecessary lights for one hour. Globally it is done in the same manner – one hour for just one night, at the same time. Just one hour each year and yet it causes so much positive impact on planet Earth. So, why not celebrate 2013 Earth Hour?

The World Wild Fund for Nature spearheads the global event, participated by businesses and households. The objective is to raise awareness about climate change. It is an event that was started by WWF, which partnered with advertising agency Leo Burnett in 2007. The first event took place in Sydney, where 2.20 million Sydneysiders turned off their non-essentials lights for one hour. In 2008 more cities followed.

For this year 2013, the event will happen from 8:30 to 9:30 in the evening (local time for all participating cities) on the 23rd of March.

Activities for Earth Hour 2013

The Earth Hour is scheduled earlier this year to avoid the beginning of the summer time in Europe as well as the Holy Week celebrations in the western world. More countries and cities are participating this year, with plenty of creative activities to show the impact of how much carbon emission is curbed for just one hour and how much energy consumption is saved.

In Uganda, the citizens have started the Earth Hour Forest, the very first in the world. More than 6,000 hectares are deforested in Uganda each month and the WWF-Uganda has pinpointed 2,700 hectares of denuded land to challenge individuals, business and government official to plant at least 500,000 trees on that particular plot of land in 2013. The concept they used was “I Will If You Will” and the Standard Chartered Bank in Uganda has already pledged to have 250,000 trees planted in the forest.

Mr. Festus Mogae, former President of Botswana also took up the challenge and promised that one million trees indigenous to his country will be planted within four years, starting with 100,000 trees in Goodhope.

Indonesia calls the challenge “Ini Aksiku! Man Aksimu?” and they have used Twitter in mobilizing 30 Indonesian cities for their event.

History

It was actually in 2004 when the idea took shape. WWF Australia took up the issue of climate change and thought of ways to engage Australians’ attitude towards the issue, based on the alarming scientific findings. They hired the advertising agency, Leo Burnett Sydney to come up with an idea. The agency proposed “The Big Flick” in 2006, using a large image of a switch that is turned off. The event that would go with the awareness campaign was supported by Lord Mayor Clover Moore of Sydney and Fairfax Media, one of the largest multi-media companies in Australia and New Zealand. The localized event took place at 7:30 PM in Sydney on March 31, 2007.

Global Participation

The first international Earth Hour event was held in 2008. Four hundred cities in 35 countries joined the event that year. In 2009, participants came from 96 countries, involving 4,159 cities, which was quite a dramatic rise in numbers. The numbers keep rising, with 126 countries joining the event in 2010. In the United States alone, it was estimated that about 90 million Americans participated in the observance of Earth Hour. Famous landmarks in the United States, including energy-hogger Las Vegas Strip joined the cause.

By 2011, the participation grew bigger. 135 countries in all seven continents became involved, with some 5,251 towns and cities and close to 1.8 million people turning their lights off that year. Last year registered the biggest growth in participation, recording 152 countries and 7,000 towns and cities.

All of us make demands and depend too much on Mother Earth for water, food, fresh air and fuel. The energy we use constantly every second of our life, however beneficial it is to humans and industries, harm the planet, leading to climate change. Earth Hour asks us for just one hour to turn off unnecessary lights, which is enough to help in conserving energy and reduce carbon dioxide emission. It is not too much of a sacrifice to give back to the one and only planet capable of sustaining life.