What is Earth Hour?
Earth Hour is a global campaign organized by WWF (formerly known as World Wildlife Fund) for saving the earth environment and it is celebrated each year on March 24 (last Saturday of March). The campaign is an initiative to create awareness among world population to the effects of climate change by taking a simple step of switching the lights at homes and businesses for only one hour at approximately 8.30pm (20:30) worldwide. The Earth Hour campaign also emphasizes on developing a future for its population to live in harmony with nature.
The first World Hour event started on 31 March 2007 in Sydney, Australia where approximately 2.2 million homes and businesses start to turn their lights off for an hour to show their support against climate change. The following year saw a massive global sustainability movement during Earth Hour with more than 50 million people from 35 countries joining hands for the same purpose. Worldwide global landmarks join together in darkness in 2008, which include Sydney Harbour Bridge, the CN Tower in Toronto, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum. The third edition of Earth Hour on March 2009 saw the participation of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.
The WWF organization, which was founded in Morges (Switzerland) on 11 September 1961, currently has a network of more than 90 offices in more than 40 countries worldwide. The organization helps the world population be aware of the threat of climate change to the environment, habitats, species, and to the livelihood of the people. One of the examples of increasing biodiversity loss is our ocean where we can notice that the sea levels are rising and oceans are becoming warmer. For the past 30 years, thermal and acidification stress in oceans have been the major cause for coral bleaching and losses of the world’s coral reefs. One good example is Hong Kong where it used to be inhabited by over 100 coral species, which even outnumbered the total amount found in the Caribbean Sea. However, until today you can even find any in areas like the Victoria Harbour and Tolo Harbour.
Earth Hour Activities
Earth hour activities include the turning off lights during the night in order to show massive support to save the Earth environmental surroundings. Today, it is done by millions of people all over the world each year on third Saturday of March or 24 March at 8.30pm (20:30) local time. They stood in the dark to support Earth Hour events together with iconic buildings and landmarks all across Americas, Europe, Asia and other continent as well.
Apart from that, Earth Hour are celebrated with other activities, such as having a candle-lit dinner, a candle-lit bath, hosting large events or parties, either in darkness or with candles. Earth Hour also received support from businesses and government organizations, as well as community and political leaders throughout the world.
Earth Hour Flowers
Flower gifts can also be a part of Earth Hour for example green flowers that resemble the Hope tree, which symbolize global symbols of Earth Hour. Decoration of beautifully arranged Earth Hour flowers that comes with green colours will definitely light up any of the event organized in support of Earth Hour. Flowers can also be decorated according to the 2018 Earth Hour theme, which is “Let Nature Shine”. Use your creativity to arrange lovely arrangements to be shared with your colleague, friends or family members besides switching off the lights at 8:30p.m on 24 March.