Turn off the light, illuminate the future
Cibeles, Puerta de Alcalá and Casa de America will join the Earth Hour initiative.
Earth Hour is a global WWF climate change initiative planned for next Saturday March the 27th at 8.30 pm (local time), which will turn out the lights for one hour in the most representative monuments of the entire international geography.
Turn off your switch and join the greatest call to action ever organized. It will demonstrate that, acting together, we are all part of the solution to global warming. This edition aims to involve more than one billion people and mobilize 6,000 cities worldwide.
In our region, by far, have been confirmed the memberships of Madrid, Alcala de Henares, Pinto and San Sebastian de los Reyes. For the second consecutive year the capital will disconnect the lighting of the palace and the Cibeles fountain, Palacio de Linares (Casa de América) and the Puerta de Alcalá. Pinto has chosen the Eboli Tower, the City Hall, the Church of Santo Domingo, Juan Carlos I park and sports facilities. San Sebastian de los Reyes will also turn off the council, as well as the fountains. All these monuments will stay dark for one hour, the Earth Hour.
Last year more than 4,000 cities in 88 countries, including 200 Spanish cities were involved. Citizens, councils, businesses as well as schools, universities, media and other organizations turned off their lights to send a powerful visual message demanding immediate actions on climate change.
The goal this year is to mobilize more than one billion people from 6,000 cities around the world to show the support to this initiative against climate change.
A symbolic gesture of millions is a global action.
Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their 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 participating. Global landmarks such as the, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The CN Tower in Toronto, The 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.
In March 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.
In Spain, 4 million people in 200 cities were involved shutting down buildings such as the Puerta de Alcala in Madrid, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Giralda in Seville, the Aqueduct of Segovia and the Mosque of Cordoba, and other many Alhambra, la Cibeles, the Guggenheim, the Agbar Tower in Barcelona and hundreds of buildings.
The world responded incredibly, turning off the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens, the St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in London, the Elysee Palace and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube in Beijing, the Symphony of Lights Hong Kong, The Opera House and Sydney Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.