Earth Hour 2014
Earth Hour is a global environmental initiative in partnership with WWF. At 8:30pm on Saturday 29th March 2014, individuals, businesses, governments and communities will turn off their lights for one hour to show their support for environmentally sustainable action towards the betterment of the one thing that unites us all: our living planet.
Earth Hour began in 2007 in a single city, but by 2012, Earth Hour reached more than 7,000 cities and towns across 152 countries and territories, becoming “the world’s largest campaign for the planet”. Please sign up here; the more people pledge to “Live Green”, the more powerful our efforts to protect our planet become.
How to Participate in Earth Hour
Earth Hour is held anne last Saturday of March. It actually on started in 2007, in Sydney and has since spread across the world. The goal of this project, organized by the World Wide Fund of Nature, is to achieve greater energy efficiency by encouraging households and businesses toturn off non-essential lights and electrical appliances for an hour. It is hoped through this to continuously raise awareness among all communities about the impact of energy use on climate change and how our own energy practices can be far more efficient.
Saving energy makes good sense and showing your solidarity with others who would like to transition to a more sustainable, energy-conscious society are two great reasons to participate in this worldwide event.
1- Mark your calendar! Earth Hour is traditionally celebrated the last Saturday of March. In 2013, it will be celebrated on March 23rd, from 8:30-9:30pm (20:30-21:30) in your local time zone.
- Hop onto the Earth Hour website at: http://www.earthhour.org/. See what activities are happening in your region, as well as following countdowns and stories about what other people are doing for Earth Hour in different parts of the world.
- Create a virtual lantern for Earth Hour at http://www.earthhour.org/page/fun-stuff/virtual-lantern.
- Switch off a virtual light switch of your choosing in a house of your choosing athttp://www.earthhour.org/page/fun-stuff/virtual-lightswitch. This can be a nice way to remind your online friends to switch off too, as it has a link to send to your friends once you've switched off your virtual light.
2- Starting at 8:30, turn off the lights. In order for everyone to see everyone else who is participating, and to see entire parts of your local landscape go dark, go the whole way and turn off the lights. Look for solar or kinetic powered lights and charge them before hand. Many people use candles, but some avoid them because they release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than light bulbs.
- At the very least, turn off all unnecessary lights in your household. This means making sure to turn off the lights when you leave a room, turn off a lamp if you don't need it, or turning off an unneeded overhead light. Leaving on unused lighting consumes energy needlessly, and makes your electric bill even higher!
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Turn off appliances you aren't using. If you're not using your computer, then turn it off! Same goes for your televisions, Xbox, or DVD player. Encourage your whole household to go a step further. Switch right off everything and even unplug appliances that are only switched off. Most electronics still consume a low amount of energy even while they're off. You can save more electricity by doing this on a regular basis (like every night), keeping those extra dollars in your wallet!
4- Tell your friends about Earth Hour! The more people that participate in Earth Hour, the more energy that is saved, along with raising more awareness.
5- Make Earth Hour fun! Earth Hour doesn't have to be something boring, make it special! Consider turning off every light, leaving your house in the dark and playinghide and seek with your friends or your kids. Put your imagination to it and you'll figure out that there are lots of fun things to do in the dark, including:
- Take a nap! Catch up on some rest that over-attention to electronics has stolen from you lately.
- Write a poem or short story about what you're experiencing.
- Brainstorm energy efficiency ideas with your friends and family. Look for ways to reduce your own household's energy consumption and think of ideas as to how you can all live more energy-efficiently while maintaining a comfortable lifestyle. It's a fun and doable challenge. There are some ideas in Relateds below, to help you out.
- Take photos of what the area around you looks like if you're good with night photography. If lots of houses turned off their lights in your area, this could look really amazing. If they haven't done so, there's a story in that for you your documenting too!
- Write a blog post for uploading when you go back online. Talk about what you're doing to celebrate Earth Hour, why you think it is important to make this symbolic gesture and the sorts of things you intend on doing to live a more energy-sustainable lifestyle.
- Go out. Get out of your house and go and join others who are marking Earth Hour by getting together. Look for local community and local government events in the paper or online, as well as meet-ups of individuals and groups interested in sustainable living issues.
6- Consider turning your Earth Hour experience into a lifestyle. Turning off unnecessary lights and appliances will save you money in the long run, along with helping lessen our dependence on dwindling resources. Thinking more about sustainable living will help you to find cost-cutting measures for your everyday life, as well as realizing that it's not about giving up a comfortable lifestyle but about finding ways to live well using and consuming a great deal less.
- Every little bit of effort counts. LOOK FORWARD TO EARTH HOUR 2015!
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