14 DAY TRIAL // According to the latest estimates, more than 2,000 cities around the world have joined Earth Hour, the international event that promotes action against global warming and climate change. Some one billion people are expected to participate in the initiative, a whooping increase from last year's 50 million. This year, numerous monuments will stop being lit throughout an hour, and famous landmarks in cities around the world will either be lit in green, or not at all.
New York, London, Paris, Dubai, Hong Kong, Moscow and Nairobi are just some of most important cities that will participate in Earth Hour 2009. Lights and all other power sources will be turned off between 20.30 and 21.30, local time. The movement will thus begin in the Fiji Islands, and then move across every time zone on the globe.
The idea behind it is to draw attention to the fact that people are aware of their impact on the environment, and to prove that they can use less energy than they do now. This is meant to promote renewable energy, which is notoriously unreliable.
An estimated 84 countries will participate in the initiative, along with roughly 6,300 organizations, 2,848 towns, municipalities and cities, and 21,000 businesses. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is the main organizer of Earth Hour, and the organization says that the phenomenon is larger now than it would have imagined just two years ago, when just little over 2.2 million people in Sydney, Australia, initiated the movement.
Now, it would appear that EH has literally extended around the world. If an astronaut is lucky enough to be on their space ship during these few hours on Saturday night, then they could be treated to a very unusual show, as the lit-up surface of our planet will become gradually darker. From orbit, Earth Hour will look like a wave of darkness that travels around the world. Still, participants have to hope that their voices will be heard and that their actions will not fall on deaf ears, as they have until now.