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Are you ready for Earth Hour? It’s happening this Saturday, March 28th from 8:30-9:30 pm in your local time zone.
What is Earth Hour?
Earth Hour [2] started in 2007 as a lights-off event in Sydney, Australia to raise awareness about climate change. Earth Hour [3]is a worldwide grassroots movement uniting people to protect the planet. This is the 9th year and the movement continues to grow!
Earth Hour 2015 is about getting the crowd to use #YourPower to change climate change.
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How to participate in Earth Hour
It’s simple: turn your lights off on Saturday between 8:30-9:30 pm! Let’s be honest, that’s not always easy. We all have plans and busy schedules and this time frame might not work for you. But there is much, much more you can do to participate. The real goal behind Earth Hour is to take action beyond the hour. Think of Earth Hour as an hour of inspiration or the beginning of your journey. Do what you can do to show you care.
Watch the Empire State Building, Times Square, the Golden Gate Bridge and other iconic buildings and landmarks go dark for Earth Hour. Pretty amazing!
Here are a few ideas for honoring Earth Hour:
- Have a candle light dinner
- Check out the stars
- Play a board game by candle light
- Talk and tell stories
- Take the dog for a walk
- Have a romantic, early evening
- Enter your city or neighborhood HERE [5] to see if anything’s happening near you.
Earth Hour success stories
- More than 250,000 Russians voiced support for better protection of their country’s seas and forests
- Argentina used its 2013 Earth Hour campaign to help pass a Senate bill for a 3.4 million hectare Marine Protected Area in the country
- Thousands of wood-saving stoves were distributed to families in Madagascar
- Solar-powered lights were installed in three villages without electricity in India
- In Paraguay, WWF used the Earth Hour platform to build public support to gain an extension of the logging moratorium, helping to reduce deforestation
- Education programs for schools were launched in Thailand and Taiwan
- Hundreds of thousands of LED lights were installed by girl scouts in the USA
- More than 2123 mitigation actions submitted by Earth Hour City Challenge 2014 participating cities
But this is just the start. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes from Earth Hour 2015!
Any plans for Earth Hour this weekend?
P.S. If you liked this post you might enjoy our Groovy Green Livin Newsletter [6]. Receive new posts and special opportunities delivered right to your inbox! Sign up HERE [6].
photo credit: La hora del Planeta 21 [7] via photopin [8] (license) [9]