14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past couple of years, the Earth Hour initiative has become a true phenomenon. The project, which originally started out small in only a few cities, grew year by year to become one of the most impressive displays of people's willingness to fight global warming and climate change. Things will be no different for 2010, when organizers expect millions to participate in this endeavor. The goal is to raise awareness of the challenges facing us all and to make politicians and lawmakers know that the people actually want action, and not just empty talk.
Over the past few days, the organizers of Earth Hour have received confirmation of participation from an impressive number of cultural landmarks around the world. While the biggest is undoubtedly the Forbidden City of Beijing, China, several others also stand out. The Big Ben and House of Parliament in London, the UK, will also be putting out their lights, as will the Edinburgh Castel in Scotland, the Victoria Falls complex, in Zimbabwe, the Bosphorous Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, and the Trevi Fountain of Rome and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, in Italy. These are only a few of the world's most beautiful and meaningful buildings that have accepted to go without electricity for a whole hour.
But the list also includes even more famous structures. Also already confirmed as participating in Earth Hour 2010 are the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gate, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the Empire State Building, the London Eye, the Table Mountain, Christ the Redeemer statue, the Sydney Opera House and the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, in Dubai. This toll is significantly better than the one recorded for previous years, and shows that efforts to make people aware of the dire situation our environment is entering have been successful.
This year, the event is scheduled to begin at 8.30pm on March 27. Everyone who wants to join in simply needs to refrain from using anything that runs on electricity between 8.30 and 9.30 pm, local time. In previous years, the move saved enormous amounts of energy, as shops closed their neon signs, and people turned off computers, laptops, TV sets, device chargers and so on. For 2010, organizers want to get more than the 1 billion people that participated in 2009 involved. Already, they seem on track, as more than 121 countries announced their participation in the event.