Earth Hour happens on March 27th of this year (at 8:30 pm your local time) companies and governments all over the world are going to voice their concerns about climate change. How are they going to do it? By doing something so simple that most of us often forget to do it- by turning off their lights (for just an hour). In the United States, climate change is already being felt and seen, so Earth Hour is a great opportunity for Americans to stand up and say that they want cleaner air, a stronger economy, and less dependence on foreign oil.
Since it started in 2007, Earth Hour has been a completely nonpartisan way for us all to make our voices heard. Nearly a billion people participated in Earth Hour 2009- that’s over four thousand cities, 87 countries, spread over all seven continents. Even landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Las Vegas Strip, the Empire State Building, the pyramids at Giza, and the Eiffel Tower shut off their lights in support of Earth Hour.
How can you participate? All you need to do is turn off your nonessential lights at 8:30 pm on March 27th. By doing that, you’ll be saying that you want a more environmentally conscious nation and cleaner air. You don’t have to just sit there in the dark, though.
Here are some fun things you can do while the lights are out: -Have dinner by candlelight. Grab your sweetheart, invite friends over. Enjoy a good meal without all the distraction! -Play board games, or read a book. People survived for hundreds of years without electricity- you can do it for an hour! -Go for a walk. Take your kids for a nature walk, look up at the stars and see how many constellations you can find. Think about how hard it would be to see those stars if there were no clean air. -Knit, draw, or paint by candlelight. -Have a camp-out in the back yard. Grab a tent and a flashlight, some snacks, and tell some ghost stories. -If it’s safe to do so, play hide and seek in the dark. -Take a nap. Hey, it’s dark anyway, right? -Talk to your kids about what people used to do for fun before they had all the modern conveniences that we enjoy. -Swap out those energy-hogging incandescent bulbs for some compact florescent ones.
-If you’ve elected to unplug your freezer for Earth Hour, now is a perfect time to eat up all that ice cream. (You can always say, “It was going to melt anyway!”)
Earth Hour is an easy and painless way to say “I want a cleaner world both now, and in the future!”. Just by turning off your lights for an hour, you can unite with like-minded people around the world. Show your support for planet Earth by signing up today or watching the Earth Hour video!