50 Stories: Earth Hour – lights out for the planet

WWF Canada



On April 29, 2011, WWF celebrated 50 years of environmental conservation. Join us as we highlight 50 stories in 50 days, looking back at what we’ve achieved together and looking forward to another 50 years.
In 2010, a spectacular event united hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Not the World Cup Final.
Earth Hour.

Earth Hour lanterns, Cape Town, South Africa (c) WWF/Sean Kelland
What’s at stake?
Climate change threatens life as we know it.
Up to a quarter of all species could become extinct. Whole ecosystems, like coral reefs and tropical rainforests, could disappear. And hundreds of millions of people will suffer from flooding and extreme weather, food shortages and disease.
It’s not too late to avoid the worst. But those in power need to take bold, urgent action – and all of us need to be ready to make changes in our own lives.
The story so far
WWF recognises that conservation is the responsibility of everyone across the planet.
We launched Earth Hour to engage and unite hundreds of millions of people worldwide in support of the health of the planet we all share.
The first Earth Hour took place in Sydney in 2007 when more than 2 million people switched off their lights for one hour to show they wanted action on climate change.
Earth Hour has since grown to 128 countries, involving hundreds of millions of people in more than 4,500 cities and towns throughout the world and has become a global phenomenon – our biggest public campaign, and one of the greatest moments of mass participation ever seen.
Beijing’s Forbidden City, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, The Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza and Zimbabwe’s mighty Victorian Falls are just some of the ever-growing list of global icons that go dark for Earth Hour each year – a spectacular display of global unity and evidence of what we can achieve if we all take responsibility for looking after our planet.
 
Earth Hour is a universal message of hope and action, a movement driven by the collective will of the world, for the world.
 
Facts and stats

  • More than half a billion – the people who participated in WWF’s Earth Hour campaign in 2010
  • 4,615 – towns and cities in 128 countries that participated in 2010
  • 2.2 million – people who took part in the first event in Sydney in 2007

Did you know?
Earth Hour has even reached Antarctica – the 26-member team at the Scott Centre research base took part in 2010.
What’s next?
Earth Hour 2011 took place at 8.30 p.m. on Saturday 26 March. In 2011, Earth Hour is inviting people to go “Beyond the Hour” and beyond climate change, marking a moment where every individual, government and business can make their commitment to environmentally sustainable action for the forthcoming year. Homes, offices, government buildings and iconic landmarks across Europe, Asia, the Pacific, Africa and the Americas will go dark to acknowledge the actions of people from all corners of the globe that go beyond the hour.
 
https://www.youtube.com/wwfcanada#p/a/f/0/A4UCPHkZHwU
What you can do
Sign up to let us know you’ll be taking part and commit to actions that last all year long.
 
Be part of the celebration!