Earth Hour 2008 Gathers Momentum

Earth Hour - the world wide campaign to turn out the lights for one hour on Saturday March 29th between 8 pm and 9pm - has been gathering support in Ireland. Earth Hour seeks to inspire people to take action on climate change by having individuals, businesses and public offices turn off all lights for one hour.

Earth Hour was first held in Sydney, Australia in 2007 as a way of raising awareness of the impact an individual can have on energy consumption. Inspired by the collective effort of millions of Sydneysiders, many major global cities are joining Earth Hour in 2008, turning a symbolic event into a global movement.

The campaign has now been adopted by Adelaide, Atlanta, Bangkok, Brisbane, Canberra, Chicago, Christchurch, Copenhagen, Dublin, Manila, Melbourne, Montreal, Odense, Ottawa, Perth, Phoenix, San Francisco, Suva, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto, and Vancouver.

This month Dublin joined the list and Galway and Limerick city councils have also adopted motions supporting Earth Hour.

Earth Hour is being supported by the Stop Climate Chaos coalition and by Friends of the Irish Environment.

John Gormley, the Minister for the Environment, has also lent his support to the campaign and Minister Noel Ahern of the Office of Public Works has agreed to turn of the lights of the Government's Buildings for Earth Hour.

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