MELBOURNE, Mar 28 (IPS) - Organisers of Earth Hour 2008 estimate that in excess of 30 million people worldwide will take action on Saturday to raise awareness of how small changes can make big differences when it comes to climate change.

"The aim of Earth Hour is to build community awareness and to ensure that as many people as possible understand the simple actions that they can take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions," says Fiona Poletti, from WWF Australia -- part of the World Wildlife Fund For Nature network -- which is organising the event. This year’s Earth Hour -- like the inaugural event last year -- revolves around the simple action of participants turning off lights and appliances, instead of leaving them on standby, for an hour from 8 pm on Mar. 29.

WWF Australia says that the continuing reliance on electricity generated by coal-fired power stations is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions, which leads to climate change and the resulting sea level rises, increasing instances of drought and severe storms, and "massive changes to the environment".

"What makes Earth Hour an unique event is that it brings together governments, business, and householders who all play a part in switching of the lights. Working together, individual households, alongside the world’s most magnificent iconic landmarks, can make an impact in the fight against climate change," says the executive director for Earth Hour, Andy Ridley.

Yet with some 370 cities, towns and councils across the globe set to participate in the big turn-off, Poletti told IPS that organisers have been somewhat taken aback by Earth Hour’s popularity.

"I think the rapidness has taken everyone by surprise and I think it really is everyone in the world looking at global responsibility and the call to action," says Poletti.

And it has been a rapid rise. Earth Hour 2007 -- a joint initiative of WWF Australia, Fairfax Media and the advertising company, Leo Burnett Worldwide -- was held in Sydney, with more than 2.2 million harbour city residents and 2,100 businesses taking part.

But in 2008, Sydney’s Harbour Bridge and Opera House will not be the only renowned landmarks switching off their lights. The Sears Tower in Chicago, Toronto’s CN Tower and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge will be cloaked in darkness from 8pm on Saturday, and with cities as diverse as Suva, Manila, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv and Dublin taking part, the event localised in Sydney one year ago has become a global movement.

However, concerns have been raised about the effectiveness of Earth Hour and whether the event is solely a symbolic one, an assertion rejected by Poletti.

"The actual night...is essentially a symbolic action and it’s really to show the community and the business [sector] the link between energy usage and climate change," she says. "By everyone turning off their lights at a particular time we can measure that and this allows everyone to understand what that link is," Poletti told IPS.

Earth Hour 2007 saw energy consumption fall by 10.2 percent -- more than double the amount that organisers had hoped for -- in Sydney during the sixty minute event, saving some 24.86 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. WWF Australia says that if the greenhouse gas reduction achieved during last year’s Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be the equivalent of taking 48,616 cars of the road for the same length of time.

But Poletti insists that the Earth Hour campaign is "much broader" than just reducing energy consumption for an hour. "It’s about the long term," she says.

"By educating people about the sorts of simple actions that they can take, we hope that this will encourage behavioural change which will have a long-term impact," says Poletti.

Participants are encouraged to see Earth Hour as a first step. Organisers want people to make the principles underpinning Earth Hour part of their everyday lives. They say that actions such as turning off lights when a room is vacant or switching to cleaner sources of electricity such as "green energy" -- electricity obtained from hydro, wind, biomass and solar sources -- will help to attain the goal of reducing annual emissions by five percent. With city councils, schools, businesses, households and individuals taking part in Earth Hour 2008, WWF Australia puts the onus on the community as a whole to address climate change. People and groups from all sectors of society are encouraged to get involved by signing up to participate in the switch off, holding an Earth Hour event, fundraising, and calculating their own "carbon footprint."

That more than 30 million people are expected to participate in just the event’s second year is indicative of the wide-ranging appeal which this call to action on climate change has.

"I think the fact that you have so many that are involved in Earth Hour, this is the measure of the community and grassroots movement in this area," says Poletti. She told IPS that over four million people had signed up to take part in Earth Hour via the popular social networking website, facebook.com. This "just shows that people really want to participate and do something and show governments around the world that they’re very serious about this," says Poletti.

The project manager of Earth Hour in Melbourne, Poletti argues that people were motivated to reduce their impact on the environment in regards to their energy usage prior to Earth Hour being implemented, but were unsure of exactly what to do.

"The reason why Earth Hour came about in the first place was because individuals did not know what to do, and so this campaign allowed people…to actually start reducing their own footprint. And collectively, that footprint is reduced by a lot," she says.

Despite the giant strides that Earth Hour has taken since its inception in 2007, Poletti says that there is no definite plan for a similar event next year. But "the overwhelming response this year will probably ensure that something will happen in 2009," she says.

************************************************************************************************************************************************************

FAIR USE NOTICE:
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of foriegn policy, politics, peace, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.