Lights off for Earth Hour's global crowdfunding call

SINGAPORE -- Lights went off in thousands of cities and towns across the world on Saturday for the annual Earth Hour campaign, which is aiming to raise money via the Internet for local environmental projects.

 The Singapore-based campaign by conservation group WWF was boosted by Hollywood star power, with "The Amazing Spiderman-2" stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx leading ceremonies at the city-state's Marina Bay district.

Comic-book hero Spiderman is this year's "ambassador" for Earth Hour, which was launched in Sydney in 2007.

Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge were among the first landmarks around the world to dim their lights for 60 minutes during Saturday's event.

An estimated 7,000 cities and towns from New Zealand to New York took part in the event.

Hong Kong's stunning waterfront skyline was unrecognizable on Saturday evening, with the city's tallest skyscraper, the International Commerce Centre, stripped of the vast light show usually wrapped around its 118 stories.

Blazing neon signs advertising some of the world's largest brands were shut off, leaving the view of the heavily vertical southern Chinese city peppered only with tiny lights from buildings' interiors.

Earth Hour partnered with payments giant PayPal to allow donors to contribute to specific projects from Russia and India to Canada and Indonesia, using Asian fundraising site Crowdonomic.

Earth Hour chief executive Andy Ridley said before the lights went off in Singapore that the event had moved beyond symbolism to concrete action.

"If you want to get real social change you need to have symbolism," he told AFP.

"We are seeing some really big outcomes."

Projects under the "Earth Hour Blue" crowdfunding scheme -- which aim to raise more than $650,000 in total -- include a turtle center in Italy and funding for forest rangers in Indonesia.

The event is being marked in more than 150 countries, organizers said, estimating that thousands of cities and towns would have taken part by the time the ceremonies began in Singapore.

The projects seeking crowdfunding include a 24,000-dollar effort in the Philippines to bring fiberglass boat technology to coastal communities affected by super typhoon Haiyan in November last year.

In Nepal, $100,000 is being sought for a program called "A Flame Called Hope" to provide access to biogas energy for 150 households in the Terai region, reducing the need for wood as fuel and helping protect the habitat of endangered wildlife, according to the Earth Hour website.

Spiderman-2 star Garfield told journalists that he was a personal supporter of the Nepal project.

"What they are doing is turning waste into energy, it's like the cycle of life right there, if only everyone knew how simple it was," he said.

Earth Hour will see other landmarks including the Empire State Building in New York, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow switch off their lights for an hour starting at 8:30 pm local time on Saturday.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Andrew Garfield to give message to Pinoys on Earth Hour

MANILA - "Spider-Man" star Andrew Garfield will be giving a message to his Filipino fans this weekend during the annual Earth Hour switch-off, organizers announced Thursday.

The message from the 30-year-old actor will be shown at the Eastwood City Open Park at around 8:30 p.m.

Spider-Man, the Marvel superhero portrayed by Garfield on the big screen, is the official celebrity endorser of this year's Earth Hour 60+ campaign.

According to organizers, Eastwood City's switch-off is one of the biggest single Earth Hour switch-offs in Metro Manila with 19 residential towers, 10 office buildings, three malls, and a hotel participating in the annual event.

Garfield's part in the Earth Hour campaign leads up to the release of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," which will hit theaters in the Philippines on April 30.

In an earlier interview with ABS-CBN News, Garfield turned emotional as he gave a message to the millions affected by super typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan), which devastated parts of central Philippines in November.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

All set for Earth Hour on March 29

MANILA – Prepare to turn off your lights this weekend as this year’s Earth Hour switch-off is set to be held on Saturday, March 29.

Now on its eighth year, the 2014 Earth Hour will take place from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Around 153 countries will join the global switch-off, organizers said in a statement.

Earth Hour co-founder and chief executive officer Andy Ridley stressed that Earth Hour is not only about turning lights off, but also “about people from all walks of life coming together throughout the year to show what they can do to protect the planet.”

The Philippines has been lauded by organizers as one of the staunchest supporters of Earth Hour, with the country topping town and city participation levels since 2009.

This year, official Earth Hour representatives and celebrities will be at the Eastwood Mall Open Park and SM Mall of Asia’s by the Bay Area at 8 p.m. on March 29 for the event.

“At 8:30 p.m. this March 29, you can either initiate your own switch-off at your home or be part of bigger switch-off initiatives led by communities or companies,” said Earth Hour Philippines national director Atty. Gia Ibay.

Some of the United States’ iconic landmarks are also expected to dim their lights in this year’s Earth Hour, among them the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Empire State Building in New York and the Space Needle in Seattle.

In the United Kingdom, Wembley Stadium, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and the London Eye will dim facade lights. Over 400 monuments in France, including the Eiffel Tower, will also take part in the switch-off.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

'Earth Hour' evolves into springboard for wider action

PARIS - From Sydney Harbour Bridge, Buckingham Palace and the Brandenburg Gate to the Burj Khalifa tower, the Empire State Building, the Taj Mahal and Table Mountain, some of the world's greatest landmarks will briefly darken on Saturday night for Earth Hour, a campaign now becoming a broader vehicle for green activism.

Earth Hour originated in Sydney in 2007 with an appeal to people and businesses to turn off their lights for an hour to heighten awareness about climate change, driven by carbon-emitting fossil fuels.

The annual switch-off is now being followed in locations in three-quarters of the world's nations and has the potential to touch hundreds of millions of lives, say its organisers.

Promoted through social media, Earth Hour has also mutated in some countries into a potent tool to lobby on local issues unconnected with global warming, they add.

Switch-off events this Saturday at the local time of 8:30 pm are planned in more than 150 countries, including for the first time the Palestinian territories, Tunisia, Galapagos, Suriname, French Guiana, St. Helena and Rwanda.

Newcomers to the campaign include Copenhagen's Little Mermaid, the Statue of David in Florence and Cape Town's Table Mountain, which in 2011 joined a list of the "New Seven Wonders of Nature".

"Last year, Earth Hour was followed in 7,000 communities, an increase of about 30 percent over 2011," said Andy Ridley, co-founder of the project launched by WWF.

"The biggest area of growth has been the Asia-Pacific, the economic engine of the planet, where wherever you go now, people are living with the problems of environmental damage," Ridley said in a phone interview from Singapore.

"If you're in a big city in China, you may well be going to work wearing a face mask (against air pollution), or if you are in the Philippines, you and your family may well have been affected by a super-typhoon."

Ridley added: "What we are finding is that environment issues may be perceived differently in the big cities of Asia compared with how they are perceived in Europe or the States. They may not be perceived as exclusively green issues. They are seen as issues that are damaging your lifestyle and potentially threatening your family."

In Japan, where floodlights will be turned off on Saturday at the capital's signature Tokyo Tower, campaigners are intertwining Earth Hour with remembrance of the March 2011 mega-quake and tsunami, which unleashed a nuclear disaster at Fukushima.

In Russia, activists last year harnessed the success of Earth Hour to secure 100,000 signatures for a petition for a law to protect sea areas around oil exploration sites, says WWF.

Uganda created the first "Earth Hour forest" of 2,700 hectares (10.4 square miles) of cleared land, which greens plan to fill with half a million trees.

Campaigners in Argentina are hoping that this year's event will provide traction to protect a 3.4-million-hectare (13,100-square mile) marine zone.

As it grows in visibility, Earth Hour is also becoming a target, with critics saying it is little more than token, encourages smugness about combating climate change and ignores the needs of development.

"India observes on average eight Earth hours a day," tweeted VictorTango@airkatana, a reference to the country's notorious power outages. More than 400 million Indians still lack access to mains electricity, according to the World Bank.

Ridley said no figures existed for the overall amount of energy saved by Earth Hour. But the brief switch-off, he argued, encouraged many people to do more to curb waste and think of the environment.

Leading French climate scientist Jean Jouzel said Earth Hour at least reminded people of the crisis posed by carbon emissions, which each year scale new peaks while UN talks for curbing them mark time.

"Does Earth Hour encourage self-satisfaction? Are its results limited? I would say 'yes' to both," Jouzel said.

"But if it's a toss-up between doing nothing and doing something that is not perfect but is still something very visible, I think the answer is: do something. In fact, we need more action of this kind."

source: abs-cbnnews.com

All systems go for Earth Hour at 8:30pm, March 31

MANILA, Philippines – Government agencies, local government units and community organizations, and corporations big and small will join environmentalists and celebrity advocates in today’s observance of Earth Hour, a global campaign involving a one-hour switch-off of lights to dramatize the urgency of saving the planet.

In the Philippines, all government agencies and local government units will participate in the annual Earth Hour campaign later today, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.

In a memorandum order, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. said there will be three simultaneous switch-off ceremonies in the cities of Makati, Cebu and Davao.

Ochoa also urged public servants nationwide to take an active role in the global campaign as he called on Filipinos to make a long-term commitment to environmental preservation.

“Everybody benefits from the vast resources that our planet gives us and so it is only appropriate that everybody takes responsibility and do our share, even in our own little ways, to help preserve Mother Earth,” Ochoa said.

“And this Earth Hour event is one of the many significant opportunities for us to show our appreciation and care for our environment,” the Executive Secretary added.

He also ordered all government agencies to utilize various communication channels to promote Earth Hour 2012 on their official websites, community newsletters and blogs.

“The government agencies and LGUs play an important role in the environmental conservation campaign since it has the resources to help expand the reach of the campaign and step up the battle against global warming and other forms of environmental degradation to ensure that effective actions are being undertaken towards a sustainable future for the next generations,” Ochoa said.

This is the fifth time that the Philippines is participating in Earth Hour which started in Australia in 2007.

Campaign reaches out to space

For the first time, the global 60-minute switch-off will extend to the International Space Station, where Earth Hour Astronaut-Ambassador Andre Kuipers shall stand vigil over the imperiled planet as the lights switch off at 8:30 p.m. March 31, sharing photos and live commentary.

Kuipers says he is thrilled to participate in Earth Hour to literally take the globally-significant movement to new heights. “There’s no better way to raise awareness for the future of the most beautiful planet in the whole universe!”

Back on Earth, from Angola to Zimbabwe, organizing teams from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and its growing roster of allies have been busy preparing for what is hoped to be the largest environmental celebration in human history.

Founder marking the Hour in PH

Earth Hour founder and Executive Director Andy Ridley said earlier everyone from citizens to businesses, school children to world leaders, need to believe they can make a difference.

“The state of our planet affects each and every one of us,” says Ridley. “Last year Earth Hour reached 1.8 billion people across the planet. This year through digital media we are offering a greater opportunity to connect people with the desire to take much needed action for the environment.”

Ridley - the founder of Earth Hour - is slated to celebrate Earth Hour 2012 in the Philippines, which has been rewarded for topping Earth Hour’s global town and city participation levels for three straight years by being declared a ‘Hero Country’.

Partners for Earth Hour

Philippine Media Champions include TV5, ABS-CBN, GMA-7, CLTV-36, Discovery Channel, Knowledge Channel, ZOE TV, Global News Network, Philippine Star, BusinessWorld, BusinessMirror, Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, Aftercall Magazine, Philippines Graphic, Radyo Veritas, DZIQ, DZAR, Globaltronics, QCreativs, Photoworld Manila, ASK and Illuminati Philippines.

Corporate partners include Arthaland, McDonald's, Globe Telecommunications, Primer Group of Companies, Core, York, Victory Liner, Aboitiz Group of Companies, Philippine Business for Social Progress, Ayala Land, SM Supermalls, Canon Marketing Philippines, the Makati Shangri-La Hotel plus Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila. The list of allies grows longer each day.

“More than anything, Earth Hour is a celebration of hope. When our planet plunges into darkness, we can look to the stars and dream of what can be. When the lights switch back on though - our real work begins,” according to Earth Hour Philippines National Director Atty. Gia Ibay.

Philippine preparations set

WWF-led switch-off ceremonies are slated for the cities of Makati, Cebu and Davao - though other cities and towns are expected to hold well-organized events to observe the switch-off.

Makati City’s Ayala Triangle Gardens shall be the central hub for Luzon. At 6:30 PM on 31 March, glow-in-the-dark dance troupe Bailes de Luces and the Caracol dancers shall form the vanguard of an Earth-themed parade which starts at the Makati fire station and ends at Ayala Tower One - where WWF-Philippines National Ambassador Rovilson Fernandez shall host a program with performances from El Gamma Penumbra, Brigada and other groups. Earth Hour founder Andy Ridley shall lead the country’s main switch-off event, hosted by WWF with the help of Ayala Land and the Makati City Government.

Cebu City’s Plaza Independencia shall be the chief switch-off site for the Visayas. A festive street parade led by local Sinulog Dancers shall start from Fuente Osmeña Circle from 5:30 PM onwards. The Cebu switch-off further features a candle lighting ceremony capped off by the release of biodegradable sky lanterns. Cebu’s event is in cooperation with the Aboitiz Group and the Cebu City Government.

SM Davao shall be the main switch-off site for Mindanao. WWF-Philippines National Ambassador Marc Nelson shall host the switch-off, which features a tribal-themed parade around SM Davao at 6:30 PM. Black-light and fire-dancers shall woo the crowd with specialized routines once the city plunges into darkness. The Davao event is in collaboration with SM Supermalls, the Green Alliance and the Davao City Government.

‘I Will If You Will’ pledges snowballing

Earth Hour 2012’s new ‘I Will If You Will’ handle empowers people to share a personal dare with the world by asking everyone what are you willing to do to save the planet?

The concept of ‘I Will If You Will’ centers around providing a social contract between two parties - connecting one person, business or organization to a ‘promise’ and their friends, family, customers or members to a ‘challenge’ - uniting them behind the common goal of creating a positive environmental outcome.

The campaign has taken hold and ‘I Will If You Will’ pledges are now snowballing across cyberspace.

Cynthia Dayco, a mother and WWF-Philippines Facebook fan, has promised to let her son Josh play Minecraft an hour longer over the summer break if Josh remembers to turn off the lights and fan whenever he leaves his room.

Lyjenunt Gonowon, another WWF-Philippines fan, has pledged to recycle if her friends promise to switch to energy-efficient CFL bulbs.

An enormous LED billboard along EDSA currently showcases pledges posted on the WWF-Philippines fanpage.

Famous faces around the world are speaking out to encourage participation and support for Earth Hour. Environmental activist and former US Vice-President Al Gore urged people to join the switch-off from a video message recorded from Antarctica. Pledges are coming in from a plethora of groups - ranging from top band Coldplay to global supermodel Miranda Kerr. As an open-sourced campaign, Earth Hour uses social media to connect a global community of people inspired to change the world we live in. With a report from Chichi Conde, InterAksyon.com

Earth Hour dilemma: When the 'Like' button harms the planet

PARIS -- Green groups around the world are turning to social networking to drive their campaign for Earth Hour on Saturday, when lights are turned off for an hour to signal concern about global warming.

But here's the irony.

With every email, every tweet, every appeal watched on YouTube or "liked" on Facebook, environmentalists are stoking the very problem they want to resolve.

Each time we network, we emit carbon dioxide through the fossil fuels that are burned to power our computers and the servers and databanks that store or relay our message.

That poses a small dilemma for the Australian-led campaign for Saturday's switch-off.

In 130 countries around the world, people are being urged to turn off the lights for one hour at 8:30 p.m. local time as a show of concern about climate change.

In emails alone, the typical office worker is responsible for 13.6 tons of CO2 or its equivalent per year, a French government agency for energy efficiency, ADEME, calculated last year.

That figure is based on a French company of 100 people who work 220 days a year and each receive 58 mails a day and send 33 per day, with an average mail size of one megabyte.

By comparison, 13.6 tons is more than twice the annual CO2 emissions per capita in France and almost two-thirds of the average annual emissions per capita in the US.

The more people you cc and the bigger the mail, the greater the carbon emissions, ADEME said.

"Just a 10-percent reduction in the number of mails that are sent which include the boss and one of his colleagues leads to a gain of one ton, the equivalent of a round-trip flight from Paris to New York," it said.

Facebook and Twitter say they are striving to keep their carbon footprint as small as possible.

Facebook, which claims 800 million users worldwide, is building a massive data center -- its third globally and first in Europe -- in the Swedish town of Luleaa, near the Arctic Circle.

The local chill helps cool servers, rather than using air conditioning to do so, and the town gets clean energy from hydro.

Greenpeace had mustered a 700,000-signature demand for a "greener" Facebook under its so-called Unfriend Coal campaign.

At a talk last year that he posted on the Internet, Raffi Krikorian, a director for infrastructure at Twitter, said the company contributed around 0.02 grams of CO2 to the atmosphere with each 140-character tweet.

"But at 50 million tweets, that's one metric ton of CO2 a day," he observed. "We can do better. We are making our stuff a lot more efficient, and that will get (our carbon emissions) a lot further down."

Just how damaging to the climate is the Internet?

By comparison with other sectors, not very -- and it can be argued that the Internet saves carbon which would otherwise be emitted in snail mail, phone calls or travel to face-to-face meetings.

A 2007 estimate by Gartner Inc., an international consulting firm, found the information and communications technology industry was sharply increasing its CO2 emissions in absolute terms but still accounted for only around two percent of the global total.

This is less than a sixth of emissions from either transport, industry or agriculture.

Andy Ridley, Earth Hour's executive director, said his organization invested in offsets -- projects that mitigate carbon emissions -- to compensate for its own fossil-fuel pollution.

It was also using an intranet social platform called Yammer to cut down on internal emails.

"It has revolutionized how we communicate and very significantly cut the amount of electronic traffic," Ridley told AFP.

"Overall, we think that our ability to build a campaign digitally, and to engage with people across the planet in a way that minimizes travel, is one of the great advantages of technology."

source: interaksyon.com

"Earth Hour" gains young generation's support worldwide

source- Philstar.com



BEIJING, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The world's adults may still be arguing over ways to fight climate change but the future caretakers of our planet are already active in saving energy and protecting the environment
.

On Saturday, young generations across the globe will join the world to switch off lights for 60 minutes for this year's "Earth Hour," in a bid to raise the awareness of climate problems.

The event, which began in Sydney in 2007 when the city went dark in a call for action from individuals and communities to build a better future, has become increasingly popular and thousands of towns and cities in more than 120 countries are expected to embrace darkness on 8:30 p.m. local time this year.

In France, where the landmark Eiffel Tower will once again be powered off on Saturday, 10-year-old Parisian Celine recalled her memory during last year's "Earth Hour."

"I saw at the time that the Eiffel Tower went dark bit by bit from the top to the bottom. I was a little worried at first, as the tower might be invisible when lights were all off," Celine said.

"But I found later that I could still see it without lights and it was a different view from what we used to see," the girl said, adding she was fond of such a lights-off activity because it not only enables her to see different sceneries, but more importantly, saves electricity.

Thirteen-year-old Anna, living in the western French city of Rennes, could not see a dark Eiffel, but also had a fantastic "blackout" moment a year ago.

"I heard about the campaign from a friend on the internet, and thought it a novelty. It was late for me to join any public event at that time, so I, with my parents, turned off the lights in the room to show our support," Anna said.

"We felt unaccustomed for some time at first, but then mother lit up a candle and we started chatting. That made the night joyful and meaningful," she said.

In Italy, where the lights will also be doused on the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa, 10-year-old boy Luca said the campaign was symbolic in helping the planet.

"It's a small gesture but very important. We are all responsible for climate change and I wish there were more Earth Days," Luca added.

Giulia, an 11-year-old Italian girl, said: "I am not afraid of the dark because, when the lights are off, there's the moonshine illuminating the city."

Only two cities in South Korea, Seoul and Changwon, joined the global call to go dark for an hour last year, but a total of 50 cities and towns will follow the trend this year. It also helps to increase the popularity of "Earth Hour" among children in the country.

Kwon Young-woo, a 10-year-old South Korean boy who dreams of becoming a scientist and doing everything to save the earth, told Xinhua the idea was new to him, but he thought it would help the planet survive.

"I will definitely join the event on Saturday. I will also ask mother to turn off the floor heating system and close the window, because that helps to keep the temperature in the room and saves a lot of energy," Kwon said.

Kim Sun-won, an 11-year-old, also said he would disconnect the plugs at home when he was not using the household appliances in the future.

Mariah, a young student from Kiev, Ukraine, said the event was a call for creating better life.

"The stars will be brighter when lights are off. And there will be less noise," said the girl. "We could have a moment of calmness in the beautiful darkness."

Activities such as a children's painting contest with the theme of environmental protection will also be held around the world to celebrate this year's "Earth Hour."

While "Earth Hour" will celebrate its fourth birthday on Saturday, there is growing doubt whether it remains merely symbolism with no ongoing effect on energy consumption habits.

World Wildlife Federation (WWF), a faithful supporter of the event, says no. "Earth Hour is more than switching off lights for one hour ... It's about giving people a voice for the future of our planet, and sending a message to our world leaders that we want action on climate change."

When playing hide and seek in the dark, doing each other's makeup in the dark and telling scary stories to each other in the dark, the future generations may also be contemplating the world's environment woes.

Their solutions to a greener world might just be around the corner.