Let’s join the Earth Hour Movement, the world’s largest voluntary action for the environment

Bruhaspati Samal

 Secretary, AIPEU, Group-C, Bhubaneswar

e Mail : aipeup3bbsr@gmail.com

Dear Comrades,

As you know, to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate change, Earth Hour Movement which is being celebrated worldwide on the last Saturday of March every year, has in the mean time remained more than a lights-off campaign since its humble inception in 2007 in Sydney with only 2.2 million participants  to an event that reached an estimated 1.8 billion people in 2012. While by 2008, 279 cities and towns in 35 countries and by 2009, 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries had participated, it is expected that more than 7,000 cities and towns across 152 countries and territories on all seven continents will participate this year.

Earth Hour 2013 will be held on March 23, 2013 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. during participants' local time when Cape Town’s Table Mountain, the Statue of David in Florence, Tokyo Tower, Taipei 101, the Bird’s Nest in Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers, the Gateway of India in Mumbai, the walls of Dubrovnik, Buckingham Palace in London, Times Square in New York, Niagara Falls, Toronto’s CN Tower and the Las Vegas Strip, among others will go dark as a symbolic gesture marking each nation’s commitment to sustainability in 2013 in honor of Earth Hour. Each will turn all nonessential lights off for one hour today between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. local time. After that, it’s up to everyday citizens to take the movement “beyond the hour.”

In this context, India is not also lagging behind. More than 150 cities in India are set to participate in the Earth Hour today between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm. India observed its first Earth Hour in 2009 with people in 56 cities switching off the lights. Last year there was a competition amongst the big important cities in India and the National Capital of Delhi was declared as champion. India could be able to save 295 megawatt electricity last year during Earth Hour celebration of one hour only.

Internationally acclaimed Odia sand artist Mr. Sudarsan Patnaik has extended his support by becoming the brand ambassador for Earth Hour campaign in Odisha. In Odisha, the 28 Hours of Earth Hour Campaign has already started with a Cyclothon from Lord Jagannath Temple at 4:30PM on 22nd Mar 2013. The Cyclothon is going to end by 8:30PM on 23rd Mar 2013 at the huge sand sculpture in Puri beach built by Sudarsan. Personalities like Ajay Devgan, Venkatesh Prasad, Shruti Hassan, Mary Kom, Parambrata Chatterjee and Jiva etc. are supporting this campaign as brand ambassadors from different regions.

 The initiative by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is to encourage individuals, businesses and governments around the world to take accountability for their ecological footprint and engage in dialogue and resource exchange that provides real solutions to our environmental challenges. As we know, the speed of climate change, fuelled by the ever increasing consumption of earth's resources, is having a bad impact on the world. Unless we take efforts to transform our energy production to renewable energy, we will head for climate instability and energy insecurity. This will affect all of us.

At this critical juncture, the All India Postal Employees Union, Group-C, Bhubaneswar Divisional branch takes this opportunity to appeal sincerely every individual who are viewing this blog to give his/her best  to make this transition by taking small yet significant steps.

Let’s promise to sacrifice one hour for our Mother Earth.

 (By  inputs from : www.earthhour.org,  http://www.odishareporter.in, http://zeenews.india.com )