Earth Hour - Switch Off!

On March 28, 2009, at exactly 20:30 local time, hundreds of millions of people around the world will turn off their lights for one hour to show that they care about the future of our planet.

Earth Hour 2009 will become the largest collective action in human history and will be recorded in the Guinness Book of Records! In thousands of cities worldwide, street lighting, advertising signs, office windows, and apartments will be turned off.

By participating in this event, people around the world will visually demonstrate that they are concerned about the problem of dangerous climate change on the planet and that they demand that political leaders sign an effective international agreement in December 2009 in Copenhagen, which will determine the actions of all countries to combat climate change until 2020.

Already 75 countries and 530 cities worldwide have joined this campaign. The list includes Moscow, London, Beijing, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Athens, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, San Francisco, Oslo, Rome, Toronto, Sydney, Mexico, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Manila, Las Vegas, Brussels, Cape Town, Helsinki, and others.

The official participants of Earth Hour in Russia have already joined by Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Murmansk, and Moscow. Preparations are underway in Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar, Arkhangelsk, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod.

During Earth Hour, the lights of world-famous buildings and landmarks will go out, such as the giant statue of Christ above Rio de Janeiro, Table Mountain in Cape Town, Merlion in Singapore, Sydney Opera House, CN Tower in Toronto, Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and the tallest building in the world – Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

In Moscow, the lights will go out at the Moscow City Hall, Moscow State University, and the Federation Tower.

For the first time, Earth Hour was held in Sydney, Australia in March 2007. A year later – in March 2008 it achieved a planetary scale – over 50 million people from 35 countries turned off their lights for one hour.

And one village in the Fiji Islands – Visoko – which has never had electricity – marked Earth Hour by turning on the solar-powered lighting that was installed shortly before the event for the first time!

"2009 is the year of determining the future of planet Earth. It's the year when the world must finally come to an agreement on a plan for large-scale reduction of carbon emissions in all countries – says Alexey Kokorin, head of the climate program at WWF Russia. - It's time to invest in new business development models within the new 'green economy'. We all must take the first step together. Our collective actions today can change history and secure the planet's future for our children."

You can participate in the event by registering at the official site→ and turning off the lights for Earth Hour – on Saturday, March 28 at 20:30!