|
Earth Hour
2011
Earth Hour is a global event organized by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature and also Wildlife Fund) held every year on the last Saturday of March. Earth Hour
2011 will take place on March 26, 2011 from 8:30 p.m. to
9:30 p.m., local time asking households and businesses to turn off their
non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise
awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Earth Hour
2011 will continue to be a global call to action to every individual,
every business and every community.
Earth Hour 2011 is reportedly on track to become the largest Earth Hour
aiming to garner more than the one billion participant goal. 126 countries have signed up for Earth Hour 2011.
Earth
Hour to raise awareness
Earth Hour, organised by the World Wildlife Fund and into its fourth year, is
intended to pressure governments to act on slowing global warming. The Empire State Building in New York, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Eiffel
Tower in Paris, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Table Mountain in Cape
Town, the pyramids near Cairo, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Rio de Janeiro’s
statue of Christ and hundreds of other landmarks will dim for 60 minutes.
Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley said the Copenhagen fiasco had not dampened desire for
multilateral action to reduce emissions. “After Copenhagen we were really fearful that Earth Hour would die, that people would be fatigued with climate change, but the opposite has happened,” he said. “The uptake has been phenomenal.” Mr. Ridley, who claims 1 billion Earth Hour participants in more than 125 countries, said the importance was not electricity saved but issues raised.
Today
121 countries goes dark
Event co-founder Andy Ridley said that 126 countries and territories had
so far signed up, with thousands of special events scheduled, including a
lights-out party on Sydney's northern beaches and an Earth Hour 'speed dating'
contest. The remote Chatham Islands was the first of more than 100 nations and
territories to turn off the power at 8.30 p.m. local time, in a rolling event
around the globe that ends just across the International Dateline in Samoa 24
hours later. In the Chatham Islands, diesel generators that supply power locally were
switched off. Other early participants included New Zealand, Fiji and Tuvalu,
where driving was halted temporarily.
World icons taking part for the first time this year include the presidential
Blue House in South Korea and the Forbidden City in Beijing. In Hiroshima, Japan, the city's peace memorial will go dark, as will the
pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt. All the bridges over the Seine in Paris will go dark as will the Eiffel Tower
and the Arc de Triomphe. So will the London Eye, Buckingham Palace and London's
Tower Bridge. In the United States, more than 30 of the 50 state governors have lent their support.
Earth Hour
2010
Nearly 1,387 icons and landmarks worldwide turn off their lights for
Earth Hour, including:: Acropolis of Athens , Athens : Abu Simbel temples , Aswan
: Atomic Bomb Dome, Hiroshima; Bank of America Tower, Miami ;Big Banana, Coffs Harbour; Big Ben, London; Brandenburg Gate, Berlin
; Burj Al Arab, Dubai; Burj Khalifa, Dubai ; Cairo Tower, Cairo; Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro
; CN Tower, Toronto ; Colosseum, Rome; Coca Cola Billboard, Kings Cross, Sydney; Eiffel Tower, Paris
; El Ángel, Mexico City ; Empire State Building, New York ; Forbidden City, Beijing
; Four Seasons Hotel, Miami ; Gateway Arch, St. Louis ; Grand Palace, Bangkok
; Hanoi Opera House, Hanoi ; KL Tower, Kuala Lumpur ; Leaning Tower of Pisa, Pisa;
London Eye, London ; Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls; Padrăo dos Descobrimentos, Lisbon
; Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur ; Piccadilly Circus, London ; Pyramids of
Giza, Cairo; Red Fort, Delhi ; Reunification Palace, Ho Chi Minh City and many more famous landmarks. |
Earth Hour 2011 observed on March 26, 2011 from 8:30 p.m. to
9:30 p.m., local timer
 |
|
