The countdown has begun! Earth Hour 2018, an initiative started by World Wildlife Fund and now in its 10th year, will again take place on Saturday 24th March at 8:30pm. It’s easy to take part, simply switch off the lights for an hour, saving CO2 emissions and spreading an important message to help protect our planet! Staff at Nicol will be taking part this year and we encourage our clients to have a go and spread the word further to friends, family and colleagues – you can sign up here to take part and show your support.
As a WWF Earth Hour ‘Super Local Authority’, East Renfrewshire are urging local people and council staff to support World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour as part of an ongoing drive to protect the environment.
The local council has joined millions across the globe in switching off lights every year for 60 minutes, in a graphic demonstration of support for people and wildlife threatened by climate change.
East Renfrewshire Council is also encouraging staff to make sure that they switch off lights in their own homes.
The biggest global event of its kind, Earth Hour has grown year on year, with hundreds of millions of people taking part across the globe from Berlin to Bangkok, Melbourne to Manilla, and many famous landmarks such as Sydney Opera House, The Colosseum and The Golden Gate Bridge being dimmed for the event. In Scotland, lights at The Kelpies, Forth Road Bridge and Edinburgh Castle have been switched off in support and 9 million people took part across the UK alone!
This large-scale global switch off has seen a dramatic cut to electricity usage and the resultant CO2 emissions so harmful to the planet – with almost all countries in the world participating in 2017, even just an hour of power saving can have a huge impact.
What’s even more powerful is the message Earth Hour promotes, that we all can do our small part to help protect the world we all live in. With 1 in 6 of the planet’s species at risk of extinction, including rhinos, elephants, snow leopards and polar bears, and 40% of wild forests now used as agricultural land, our impact on the natural world is dramatic and damaging. But we can all make steps to change this, and this is what Earth Hour is all about, showing how all of our small actions, on a collective scale, can have a massive, positive impact.
Check out WWF’s list of 60 things to do in the dark, to help make the most of your earth hour and have fun with it, from ideas such as candlelit dinners or street parties with your neighbours, going stargazing or catching up around a bonfire.
Support for Earth Hour and for WWF’s work helps the charity to find solutions for the environmental challenges we face across the globe – from influencing national climate policies, planting new forests in Uganda, and banning plastic in the Galapagos. Why not join the global Earth Hour movement this year on March 24th, switch off those lights and make a promise to the planet to live more sustainably.
Join in the conversation and share your Earth Hour plans on Twitter @EastRenCouncil with hashtag #EarthHour and by following @WWFScotland!