What are you doing this Saturday between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm? Turn off the lights, joining a historic WWF event that brings together millions of people around the world.
“Small Actions with Big Impact” is the theme of the initiative Earth Hour this year, to which several public and private entities are joining once again.
In the region, Leiria City Council will turn off the lights in the Town Hall building for 60 minutes, and all citizens are invited to repeat the gesture in their homes, contributing to making the planet more sustainable.
A Earth Hour emerged on March 31, 2007, in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million people and more than 2 thousand companies turned off their lights for 60 minutes as a warning about the loss of nature due to climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The success was such that millions of people around the world — individuals, companies, institutions and governments — quickly joined, representing today the largest global movement to defend the environment, with more than 190 countries and territories (90% of the planet) united through of a symbolic gesture.
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Portugal was one of the countries that joined in 2008, having already turned off lights in spaces such as: Ponte 25 de Abril, Cristo Rei and MAAT (Lisbon), Estação de S. Bento, Ponte da Arrábida and Ponte do Freixo (Porto), the Nazaré Lighthouse (Nazaré), among many others.
Other iconic buildings and monuments around the world are also left in the dark for an hour, namely: Eiffel Tower in Paris, Colosseum in Rome, Sydney Opera House in Australia, Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Big Ben in London and the Empire State Building and headquarters of the United Nations, both in New York (USA).
The initiative is promoted by WWF, World Wide Fund for Natureone of the largest and most respected independent conservation organizations on the planet, with a global network active in more than 120 countries.