Dedicate One Hour, Make a Big Impact: Simple Ways to Participate and Raise Awareness for Climate Change.
This Saturday, the 22nd of March, is Earth Hour and millions around the world will be dedicating just one hour throughout their day raising awareness about climate change.
What is earth hour
Earth Hour is an annual campaign that takes place every March. The concept began all the way back in 2007 where the campaign was centred around the ‘lights off’ movement where hundreds of buildings around the globe would switch off their lights to show support for just one hour. The movement brought awareness to the carbon intensive resources we use daily and alerted people to the issues we face as a result of climate change.
The first Earth Hour was hosted in Sydney Australia, where over 2.2 million people decided to take part and switch their lights off for just one hour. Today the message stays the same as is more important as ever with over 180 countries participating in 2024, collectively contributing to over 1.4 million hours.
But now it is even more accessible as you do not only have to cut the power for an hour, but you can also spend your hour doing anything that raises awareness, or benefits the environment, or even just makes you stop and think about the impact you make. Earth hour has set the time between 8:30 and 9:30 pm, but you can dedicate any one hour across your day to this campaign, participating is completely flexible and makes a much bigger difference than you may realise at first.
What difference does one hour make?
Each year we seem to be hitting new record temperatures and see the consequences of extreme weather, making it more important to take part and give our world a 60-minute break. By dedicating an hour of your time to the environment you will be joining millions around the world who are striving to protect our planet, little by little.
Every little action we take has an overall affect. Whilst one hour may not sound like a lot, collectively across the world it could equal to millions of hours and that is where the big impact is made.
How can you get involved?
Many choose to give an hour through turning off their lights, switch-off from technology and carbon intensive resources, learning about our environment and climate change, or simply spending time enjoying nature through a walk or in your garden.
If switching off isn’t an option for you, you can take part by dedicating an hour on Saturday doing something for our environment. This could be gardening for an hour in the morning, or you could show your support by cooking a low-carbon meal or watching a nature documentary and learn about the environment.
You also could check your carbon footprint (link to a carbon calculator) and on a practical level make sure any electricals on standby are switched off at the plug, or maybe use this time to change your heating schedule in time for the spring? There are so many ways you can spend your hour to show your support to our environment and planet that could make a big difference.
Share your earth hour!
Snap a picture of you doing your earth hour and share it with your friends, family and followers on your social media.
If you do share it on Facebook, we would love to see your efforts. Make sure to tag us @Climate County Durham, and don’t forget to tag @Earth Hour too.
We love hearing your stories, you can share yours today, no matter if it is related to earth hour or not, it could be photos of your newly planted garden, your favourite plants or flowers, and share your story of how you’re helping protect our environment in County Durham. Whether it’s something you do personally, a community project you may be involved in, a business change or action, or even a great photo of nature. We want to celebrate and share your efforts and views.
Send us your stories or photos (with a short explanation) by emailing climatecountydurham@durham.gov.uk or by filling in our “Get in Touch form” and help inspire others across our beautiful county to take action.
Don’t forget to sign up to our Climate Change and Carbon Reduction Pledge.
