Samikhsya Bureau
The world will again, for the 12th time, turn off lights to switch to a greener, much brighter future as more than 7,000 cities across 187 countries will observe Earth Hour-2019 on Saturday, March 30, from 2030 to 2130 hours.
The theme for this year is ‘Change the Way We Live!’.
Rituparna Sengupta, Associate Director-Marketing Communication at WWF-India, tells UNI, “However, the focus of the Earth Hour campaign is not to merely gauge the megawatt of electricity that has been saved. The Switch Off is a token action that aims to remind people that it is the small things we do in our daily lives that can have impact and every small action can go a long way to protect the environment.”
“Earth Hour looks at 60+ which is not just about that one hour in time but goes well beyond the hour and encourages people to adopt sustainable actions in their daily lives,” she adds.
The Rashtrapati Bhavan, India Gate, Akshardham Temple, Charminar, Victoria Terminus and other prominent landmarks in India will switch off their lights in solidarity as individuals, communities and organisations across the country and to come together to give up the habits and practices that are environmentally detrimental.
The action is for adopting the sustainable lifestyles to reduce their footprint and inspire positive action for the planet.
In 2018, about 19 major monuments and landmarks switched off their lights in India. About 15 Indian ambassadors including government officials and celebrities endorsed the ‘Give up to Give Back’ initiative, while 21 major cities, beginning from Leh in Jammu and Kashmir to Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, celebrated Earth Hour.
“Other than that, as part of a trending social media campaign, #earthhour was the second most used hash tag in India, which helped connect about 23 million people digitally. About 5.6 million of whom pledged to give up some wasteful practices and habits to give back to the planet,” WWF India stated in a post.
A worldwide movement initiated by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Australia in 2007, is a small step towards encouraging individuals, communities, corporate and schools to switch off non-essential electric lights for an hour on a specific day during March end as a symbol of their commitment towards planet earth.
But why in late March? “The second-to-last and last weekend of March is around the time of the Spring and Autumn equinoxes in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively, which allows for near coincidental sunset times in both hemispheres, thereby ensuring the greatest visual impact for a global ‘lights out’ event,” UN answers to the frequently asked question.
Science shows that human activity is driving the planet to its very brink. In 44 years, we have witnessed a 60 per cent decline in wildlife populations.
United Nations believes that we are the first generation to know that we are destroying the planet and we could be the last to do anything about it!
