It is not easy to bring people together to take action for a common cause, either at a local level or internationally. However, Earth Hour has managed to do so in just five years.
More than 5,200 cities or towns in more than 130 nations and territories, including Taiwan — an estimated 1.8 billion people in all — joined together last year, turning their lights off for an hour to show their support for action against climate change.
The idea for Earth Hour came from the World Wildlife Fund Australia, which in 2007 convinced 2.2. million Sydney residents and 2,000 businesses to turn off their lights for an hour in a show of commitment on climate change. The plan was to expand the hour-long event to all of Australia the following year, but Canada led more than 30 nations in signing up and the event quickly became a global phenomenon.
Now, Earth Hour is held on the last Saturday in March, close to the equinox, to try to ensure that most cities will be in darkness at 8:30pm.
This year’s lights out campaign will take place tonight from 8:30pm to 9:30pm and 100 landmark buildings around Taiwan have been invited to join the campaign.
Will turning off the lights for an hour, no matter how many people, cities and nations take part, really make a difference in the battle to reduce the damage climate change is causing?
No. Rather the impetus — and the importance — comes from making the gesture, in making people think about the amount of energy they consume, about the impact they have on the environment and what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint.
It also gives a push to both private businesses and governments around the world to think about what is needed, which is a commitment to clean energy research and development. That is why this year the event is expanding with the Earth Hour City Challenge, in which cities in Canada, Italy, Sweden, India and the US have been invited to devise urban development plans to substantially increase the amount of energy they get from renewable sources.
According to Earth Hour, more than 70 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions are created by cities, so changing the way cities operate can make a difference. The idea is to create plans that will not only make the cities cleaner and greener, but boost residents’ living standards as well.
While this year’s contest is open only to cities in five countries, next year it will be thrown wide open, so perhaps urban planners in Taiwan could put on their thinking caps and start coming up with ideas.
Cynics may sneer that Earth Hour is little more than a publicity stunt, but optimists respond that it is a start — and the event’s exponential growth does give cause for hope, since climate change is a problem that people across the globe and across the economic spectrum have to deal with.
However, the real test comes from the daily grind of putting into practice a commitment to reducing the amount of energy we use — taking public transportation, walking or biking instead of jumping into a car or a motorcycle, reducing consumption of electricity, especially the use of air conditioning, making homes and businesses greener and more energy efficient.
Such changes are not always easy — nor are they inexpensive — but they are crucial and they become more so every year. So when 8:30pm rolls around tonight, stop and think about what you can do, what your company or organization can do, and what Taiwan can do to reduce this nation’s carbon footprint and increase its use of renewable energy.
Future generations will thank you for it.
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