Earth Hour, the environmentally symbolic annual switch-off of lights for one hour that took place last night, extended into space this year, with the International Space Station taking part for the first time. A post-Muammar Qaddafi Libya was also to be a newcomer to the event.
The Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers, who this week oversaw the trickier task of receiving supplies from one of Europe’s unmanned spacecraft, was to share photos of Earth and live commentary as landmarks from the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House switch off their lights.
“There is no better way to raise awareness for the future of the most beautiful planet in the universe,” Kuipers said earlier this month.
From Egypt’s Tahrir Square to New York’s Empire State Building, thousands of cities were to turn off lights for 60 minutes from 8:30pm local time, with switches flicked in around 150 countries and territories.
Environmental group WWF, the event’s organizers, said this year would see record participation, with 5,411 cities and towns, and 147 countries taking part, up from 5,251 and 135 last year.
Organizations including the International Trade Union Confederation and World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts have asked their members to take part, and UNESCO has asked World Heritage sites to take part.
The Acropolis in Athens, churches and convents of Goa and Angkor in Cambodia were among those going dark. In the UK, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge and Big Ben were all to switch off their lights.
This year, Libya was to take part as Mohammad Nattah, 19, has decided to organize Earth Hour in Tripoli.
Since it began in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour has grown to become what WWF organizers say is the world’s largest demonstration of support for action on carbon pollution.
“Earth Hour 2012 is a celebration of people power — the world’s largest mass environmental event in support of the planet,” WWF Australia chief executive Dermot O’Gorman said yesterday.
“And we’re seeing hundreds of millions of people in different countries around the world take actions to go beyond the hour in support of positive actions for climate change and the planet,” O’Gorman said
Sydney’s Opera House and Harbor Bridge were among the first landmarks to plunge into darkness from 9:30am GMT, and they were followed by the likes of the Tokyo Tower, Taipei 101 and the Great Wall of China.
In the Philippines, more than 1,780 police stations and training centers turned off all non-essential lights and electrical equipment.
In Beijing, Olympic Park’s two landmark monuments the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube were to spend an hour in darkness.
And in Singapore, 32 malls — many located in the glittering Orchard Road shopping belt — and more than 370 companies including luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Armani were to turn off non-essential lighting.
“We will turn off the lights in the offices, but not the lights in the perimeter because our detainees might escape,” Philippine national police spokesman Superintendent Agrimero Cruz said.
In New Delhi, lights at three iconic monuments, India Gate, Qutub Minar and Humayun’s Tomb were to be switched off.
“We have a lot of power cuts in our neighborhood so we’re used to going without power, but my kids want to turn out the lights for Earth Hour — they’ve been learning about energy conservation at school,” Delhi mother-of-two Sangeeta Dayal said.
As the movement spread across the planet, buildings such as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the Eiffel Tower and Louvre in Paris, the cupola of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and Buckingham Palace in London were to dim their lights.
Earth Hour co-founder Todd Sampson, chief executive of advertising firm Leo Burnett Sydney, said the event began as an initiative to get Sydneysiders to switch off the lights on the harbor foreshore.
“We never would have predicted that it would be as big as it is now. And it is even bigger overseas than it is locally,” he said.
The movement has met with some criticism, but Sampson said this was a healthy part of the debate.
“It’s not designed, and it would be foolhardy to believe, that switching a light switch is going to save the planet,” he told reporters near the Sydney Harbor Bridge yesterday.
“It was originally done to raise awareness, to get people to think about it and then take action in many different ways. I think scepticism is part of the debate. It moves everything forward,” Sampson said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was