I love browsing photos of famous global landmarks in various websites. They look breathtaking in the morning and they even appear amazing at night. But each year, I like seeing pictures of these tourist spots from their dazzling night scenes to having their lights switched off. That’s the scene every Earth Hour. For an hour, participating buildings and households turn off their lights to create a visual impact to remind us that we need to take action in saving our environment.

In 2015, more than 10,400 of the world’s most iconic landmarks in 172 participating countries and territories switched off their lights. See the video below for the 2015 highlights.

At the forefront of this movement is the WWF. Earth Hour traces its roots in Sydney Australia in 2007. Nine years later, Earth Hour has grown to be the world’s largest grassroots movement for the environment. The effect though is more than just an hour of saving energy around the world.

In the Philippines, the Earth Hour movement gave way to the Gift of Light project of WWF which provides solar-powered lamps to communities that do not have access to electricity.

According to its 2015 report, “As a grassroots movement, Earth Hour works as a push and pull force for climate friendly policy and legislation. It provides a platform to influence public interest and action, harnessing the power of the crowd to make a difference. In 2015, Earth Hour mobilized support to encourage policy on locally-relevant climate issues such as fighting © Louise Clarke/WWF-Cymru deforestation (Uganda), a 10-year freeze on new oil projects in the Arctic (Russia), creation of a national park (Malaysia), reduction in energy usage (Brunei Darussalam) and stronger climate change legislation (Scotland and Switzerland).”

Climate Change is a serious issue that we need to tackle and face head on. The degradation of forests, the threat on various species, the death of rivers and bodies of water, the destructive weather conditions — the list goes on and on as to what has been happening to our planet. In the Philippines alone, we have experienced extreme weather conditions from El Nino to La Nina. Lives and properties damaged during the super typhoon Haiyan left us shocked and helpless.

Yolanda
Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) devastated the Philippines in 2013.



It is about time we take action. But, how? How do we contribute to saving the environment?

Earth Hour shares 10 ways you can do in your day-to-day activities:

1. Commute or cycle – this will reduce carbon footprint and help lower down carbon emissions.
2. Turn off electrical appliance when not in use – it’s called phantom energy and even when they are turned off yet are still plugged to an electrical source, they still consume energy.
3. Use LED light bulbs or renewable energy – this is a more sustainable method and lowers carbon footprint as well.
4. Recycle paper or lessen the use of paper – it will save more trees and other raw materials.
5. Recycle or reuse plastic bags or bring your own shopping bag – this will lessen plastic materials that clogs waterways and create mountains of garbage.
6. Reduce food wastage – it will reduce adverse effects to our food supply, as well as to our biodiversity and animal habitats.
7. Participate in the movement – it will increase and strengthen our collective power to address environmental problems, such as wildlife crime.
8. Share your Earth Hour photos
9. Read more about Earth Hour
10. Spread the word (which is what I am doing right now)

Earth Hour
Plant a tree.

If I may add to their list and to take our responses a bit further, I recommend taking part in tree planting activities, environmental clean-ups, animal preservation, ecological education programs, and other pro-active ways in saving our environment.

Earth Hour
Coastal clean-up with Hands On Manila Foundation.
Earth Hour
Hands On Manila volunteer and WWF ambassador Marc Nelson takes part in the coastal clean-up.



This year, Earth Hour takes place on March 19, 2016, Saturday, at 8:30-9:30 pm, local time. The call to action this time is to #ChangeClimateChange and it’s even heightening the campaign in the social media realm. I’ve donated my social media feed to the cause so that more and more people will be aware and can take action as well. You, too, can do something.

Watch their campaign video and donate your social media feed at https://www.earthhour.org or if you’re from the Philippines support the Earth Hour movement at http://www.changeclimatechange.org/en_PH/. And, yes, you can definitely share this blog post via social media as well.

In my locality, SM City Bacolod has been a partner of Earth Hour for 7 years and is hosting it with a candle lighting ceremony before lights are turned off at 8:30pm, local time.

Earth Hour 2016
Earth Hour 2016 at SM City Bacolod.

I attended the Earth Hour 2016 candle lighting ceremony at SM City Bacolod. Students, boys scouts, professionals, and concerned citizens converged to show their support. Talks about conserving energy and being conscious in caring for our environment were done prior to the ceremony.

The Earth Hour is an annual event. But, even beyond Earth Hour, we have to continually look after our Mother Nature and ensure that we do not contribute to the degradation of our environment but instead become a solution to our ecological problems.

Earth Hour 2016
A young boy lit his own candle to add to the sea of lights.

23 Comments

  1. Great idea! I love the way all lights turn down in major cities! That’s the spirit!

  2. Gil Camporazo

    The purpose of earth hour is to save energy and in return to save the future. The purpose is legitimate. It is for the human especially those who are young to prepare for them a world worthy to live in.

    I remember the 2nd year this Earth Hour was observed by our own small city. It so happened that the time that putting off the light was in conflict with the annual dance and sing competition. The program didn’t stop. Nobody dared to stop the on-going contest as if nobody knows about Earth Hour. Ironically there were two three by five streamers that were put up on both left and right extreme of the stage. What a shame! I don’t know with this year. What would be happening?

  3. It’s so nice to hear about bloggers advocating about the climate change that our planet is currently experiencing. It’s so noticeable, and it seems like it’s getting even more aggrevated every year. It’s time to make a change.

  4. Support a worthy cause and taking care of the environment is one of them!

  5. I will save the date and time. Aside from saving electricity we can also help to save our dying mother earth. Thank you for sharing.

  6. Earth Hour is just an hour out of all the whole year of climate-risking behavior of humans. It is indeed frightening to think of the future with extreme weather and disasters. We should really do our part now.

  7. Subha natarajan

    Beautiful..looks awesome!!

  8. Climate change is becoming worse and worse day by day. My hometown Chennai just faced the biggest rainfall of the last century. Water levels raised to devour the whole ground floor in many cases. Caution & conscious use of resources is the need of the hour.

  9. Yes we all should help to spread the awareness and hopefully more and more people are doing their part to preserved the mother nature.

  10. It is great to read about initiatives like this that the whole planet can get behind. My kid’s school does at a great job at promoting this as well and they are so proud to be a part of it.

  11. Every single action to show support to mother earth is a good one. This blog post is one of them. I must say that I live in the country (Sweden) famous for recycling and even importing other countries’ trash and recycle that as well. Stockholm is the healthiest city to live in in Europe; freshest air and water. If Sweden can do it, every country can right?
    http://bit.ly/sofarsosabine

  12. I’m glad that more and more people are becoming vocal about the urgency of the issue on climate change. I really hope that everyone will do their part. Even in the little things such as energy conservation and shifting some areas in our lifestyle can help the Earth.

  13. Environmental degradation and climate change are really serious stuff. Thank you for reminding us and telling us helpful ways we can contribute in saving our environment 🙂

  14. joining the movement! It really is about time we show that we care. And for more legislators to listen to us, especially Trump, to know that climate change is very real.

  15. It’s really nice to have an Earth Hour. I just hope that earth protection and resource preservation would come naturally even without Earth Hour.

  16. Earth hour is a great initiative to remind people every year that little bit can help the entire world.

  17. Great initiative. We all have to contribute towards making our planet a better place.

  18. Elizabeth O.

    It’s definitely important to do something to help with our ever changing environment. Climate change is a serious issue and we have to move now. Thank you for raising awareness and for knowing the value of helping out. This is a global issue and we have to act as one.

  19. Here in Bali there is a day called Nyepi where the lights aren’t used in the entire day. Twenty-four hours of no lights. Now wouldn’t that be something. If the earth could turn off for an entire day.

  20. Awareness is vital for this cause, I’m glad more and more are participating yearly.

  21. i always participate every year on the earth hour. its devastating to see our country became of the of the victims of global warming

  22. We’ve been participating this event from the start and we will still continue participating this event…one way of helping our mother earth.

  23. I’m an advocate for caring for the environment.

    http://www.cyrenedipity.com

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