I have to admit, I’ve never paid attention to Earth Hour. After all, it’s only 60 minutes. So, I decided to explore it a little and see what it’s all about. Earth Hour celebration started in Sydney, Australia in 2007 with around 2 million people turning off the lights in their homes, businesses, and cities to take a stand and say “I believe climate change is real!”. By 2009, it had spread to over 4000 cities and 88 countries.
Earth Hour is scheduled for the last Saturday in March, (March 26, 2010) – between 8:30pm and 9:30pm your local time. It’s easy. Even Las Vegas is participating. Light a soy candle, turn off the TV, the computer, and any other unnecessary electricity gobler and spend 60 minutes contemplating how you might make a personal commitment to change your climate eroding ways or educate someone else. You might even make it a mini gathering with friends.
Earth Hour is organized by the World Wildlife Fund. Visit their website to see what else you might do to help climate change. I went to the ACT NOW tab, then clicked on the TAKE ACTION page and found a terrific list of people I could contact. You need to enter your name and address and they provide the letter. Press SEND and off it goes. I thanked cool companies that are making changes to curb global warming with a simple email. Have you threatened to write your representatives and just haven’t gotten around to it? Here’s your chance. Click on the Take Action item you like. I chose, “Tell Congress NOT to slash funding for environment and conservation”. Enter your info and poof! The letter appears with copies ready to be printed for your elected officials. You can even customize the letter if you want. The World Wildlife Fund makes it easy to be an activist.
What if you’re not quite a climate change advocate? Maybe the first step is to become informed. Sign up for a newsletter that interests you and get those brain cells thinking!
Have some fun while you’re at it! Scroll down the home page and find the quiz, Find Your Inner Animal. Be prepared. My inner animal is the proboscis monkey. We have a frightening number of characteristics in common!
If the environment is something that’s important to you, celebrating Earth Hour is a great time to decide what you want to do about it, even if you have to wait until 9:30pm to print your letter to your Congressman.
