Big Ben and Houses of Parliament to switch off the lights for Earth Hour

Saturday night, lights went out all over the world to mark “Earth Hour”. Earth Hour is a global event organized by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature). People were asked to turn off their non-essential lights and other electric appliances for one hour. The intention of this event is to raise the awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.

Almost all the big cities around the world participated in this event. The Eiffel Tower, Shanghai’s Hong Kong New World Tower, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and Sydney’s Opera House are a few examples of monuments that took part in the action. The most striking monuments in central London switched off their lights too, namely the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. It is clear that this action saved a lot of energy, but campaigners have not calculated the exact amount of energy that might be saved. Earth Hour is more symbolic than a direct action to save energy and to decrease carbon emissions.

I think this is a great event organized by the WWF. I would even say that they have to do it more often, like 4 times in a year. It’s great that there is saved a lot of energy and a decrease of the carbon emissions for one hour, but the main point is still to keep people aware of the problems in the environment and the climate change. People have to remind that the climate change is a very big danger in the near future. It’s great that governments all over the world participate in this event and give an example with the participation of the world famous monuments.


Robby Lampens

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/27/earth-hour-climate-change-wwf