Earth Hour is a worldwide event that is organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, encouraging households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate change. Earth Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off for one hour to take a stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries/territories participating. Global landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, CN Tower in Toronto, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.
According to figures from EnergyAustralia, a local utility, mains electricity consumption for the 2007 event in Sydney was 10.2% lower during the Hour than would be expected given the time, weather conditions and past four years’ consumption patterns.[citation needed] The Herald Sun equated this with “taking 48,613 cars off the road for 1 hour.” Critics, most notably Columnist Andrew Bolt, labelled this as “A cut so tiny is trivial – equal to taking six cars off the road for a year”. In context, the six cars equates to there being six fewer cars on the road at any given point of time in the day or night. In response to this criticism, the organisers of Earth Hour counter that “If the greenhouse reduction achieved in the Sydney CBD during Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year.” and they also note that the main goal of Earth Hour is to create awareness around climate change issues and “to express that individual action on a mass scale can help change our planet for the better.” and not about the specific energy reductions made during the hour being all that’s required.
According to WWF Thailand, Bangkok decreased electricity usage by 73.34megawatts, which, over one hour, is equivalent to 41.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The Bangkok Post gave different figures of 165 megawatt-hoursand 102 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This was noted to be significantly less than a similar campaign initiated by Bangkok’s City Hall the previous year in May, when 530 megawatt-hours were saved and 143 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission were cut.
In the Philippines it was noted by the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. that power consumption dropped by about 78.63 megawatts in Metro Manila, and up to 102.2 megawatts in Luzon island. The maximum demand drop of around 39 MW was experienced at 8:14 p.m. in Metro Manila and of around 116 MW at 8:34 p.m. in the Luzon grid. Meanwhile, in Mindanao and in Visayas, rolling blackouts are happening every day. Ontario used approximately 900 megawatt-hours less electrical energy during Earth Hour. At one point, Toronto, Ontario saw an 8.7% reduction in consumption as compared to a typical March Saturday night. Ireland, as a whole, had a reduction in electricity use of about 1.5% for the evening. In the three-hour period between 18:30 and 21:30, there was a reduction of 50 megawatts, saving 150 megawatt-hours, or approximately 60 tonnes of carbon dioxide. So, please switch off their light on 31st of March 2012 and pledge to save energy.
