Earth Hour 2013
Switch
off, and switch on to Renewable Energy
Earth Hour continues to be a global call to action to every individual, every business
and every community. A call to stand up, to show leadership and be responsible for
our future. At 8:30 PM on 23rd March 2013, the world will come together once again
to switch off for an hour.
This Earth Hour, switch off lights, and make a sincere commitment to become a more
aware and conscious consumer! Earth Hour 2013 aims to introduce and raise awareness
about Renewable Energy solutions as an upcoming and practical option for you to
adopt to reduce your impact on the environment.
Earth Hour 2013 calls for:
- Individuals to commit to adopting household products powered by Renewable Energy.
- Organization to adopt renewable energy solutions to run their business operations and production processes.
- Governments to adopt policies favorable to the production of renewable energy to meet power demands.
The speed and scale of climate change, fuelled by an ever increasing consumption
pattern of the Earth’s resources, is impacting individuals all over the world. Unless
we make efforts to transform our energy production systems to 100% renewable, we
may do irreversible damage to our planet. Each one of us has the power to make this
transition possible by taking small, yet significant steps.
Earth Hour 2013 will be held across the world on Saturday, March 23 at 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time to avoid taking place before European Summer Time begins, ensuring the greatest impact of the lights off event. It is also to avoid coinciding with Western Christianity Holy Saturday, which falls on March 30 of that year.
In 2013, the world's first Earth Hour Forest
began in Uganda, as a first step to fight the 6000 hectares of
deforestation that occur in the country every month. The WWF-Uganda team
identified close to 2700 hectares of degraded land, and used the I Will
If You Will concept to challenge businesses, government officials and
individuals to fill it with at least 500,000 trees during the year.
Standard Chartered Bank-Uganda pledged to help fill the forest with more
than 250,000 trees.
Former President of Botswana, Mr Festus Mogae promised to plant one
million indigenous trees over a four years, as part of his I Will If You
Will challenge for Earth 2013. He will kick off his incredible IWIYW
challenge by planting 100,000 trees in a severely degraded area in
Southern part of the country called Goodhope. The remaining trees will
be planted in other parts of the country which are also in need of land
rehabilitation, such as in the North Eastern and Western part of
Botswana.By Earth Hour 2013, the 'Ini Aksiku! Mana Aksimu?' campaign (localised Indonesian version of I Will If You Will) led to a revolutionary use of Twitter to mobilise 30 cities across Indonesia to take ongoing action beyond the hour.
The I Will If You Will campaign spread to more than 50 countries, generating momentum behind Earth Hour's push to be an ongoing movement for change.
At the global media launch for Earth Hour 2013, CEO and Co-Founder Andy Ridley spoke about the movement's massive environmental outcomes beyond the hour.
"People from all walks of life, from all nations around the world, are the lifeblood of the Earth Hour interconnected global community. They have proven time and time again that if you believe in something strongly enough, you can achieve amazing things. These stories aren't unique, this is happening all over the world," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment