TORONTO, Ont. – Earth Hour will be held around the world, Saturday, with Toronto being one of the 7,000 global cities participating.
Earth Hour is considered a symbolic act, aimed at highlighting the need to protect the environment and fight climate change worldwide.
People in each participating city will dim their lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time.
Toronto was the first Canadian city to announce its participation in the event. It signed on in 2008 – one year after the World Wildlife Fund kicked off the event in Australia.
Now several years later, it’s estimated 13-million Canadians took part in Earth Hour in 2012.
Participation in Toronto has been lacklustre lately, however, with only a six per cent reduction in our power in 2012. Toronto’s best year saw a 15 per cent reduction.
“No, I knew nothing about it, it sounds like it will save a lot of energy if the whole city does it,” said one woman 680News spoke to on the street.
“I’m planning on celebrating by turning off the lights,” said another.
Franz Hartmann from the Toronto Environmental Alliance says Earth Hour is a great start.
“I think it’s a great public-education hour, we hope of course that people will be turning off their lights and any electrical appliances they can,” Hartmann said.
The CN Tower, Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower and Buckingham Palace will be among the iconic landmarks in the world dimming the lights this year.
For a full list of the landmarks across the world dimming their lights click here.
Toronto marks Earth Hour
At the Air Canada Centre, the lights will be dimmed as the Toronto Maple Leafs take on the Boston Bruins.
The World Wildlife Fund is hosting an Earth Hour celebration in Roncesvalles Village, from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
On Saturday, March 23 we’ll be covering #EarthHour LIVE across the world with the best images, videos & updates earthhourlive.org
— WWFCanada (@WWFCanada) March 21, 2013
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You tree huggers kill me, is there ANYTHING you won’t believe?
SMH.
Christmas Lights are on.. washer and dryer running. 4 Computers, 2 aquariums, and every light in the house.. maybe I should put a roast in the oven…..
The biggest problem with the “environment” is over-population, so if the Eco-freaks really want to help the planet, they know what They Really have to do tonight!!!
The problem is Canada is owned by the Queen of England and if she says to turn off the lights of Canadians the government goes along; If She says kill all Canadians the government will go along also. We need a new government the current one is too much controlled by foreign powers that don’t care about Canadians. All our tax payers go to the queen and the royal family its radicals. Just by turning off the electricity that we pay for is a major sign that the elite and the royal family doesn’t care about Canadians, this is why Canadians need to get together and retaliate against this looting by the Queen of England and the Royal Family; we need a new government new parties that will make Canada sovereign from the Anti-Canadian Royal Family that killed Princess Diana and that want to kill 90% of the world population. Time for Canadian sovereignty and this will be done only by removing all the fake payed off government bureaucrats and making a new party that will create a constitution that will anphasize the sovereignty of Canada from the Royal Family and England.
save the energy once a year all around the world. give the earth rest.
Must be Al Gore’s idea! Every day is Earth Hour! As far as I’m concerned, not interested!
I am happy with Earth Hour. Makes you think on the dependency we have on electricity. It could change any time, you know? A big enough solar storm could disrupt power grids for days, if not weeks. Then what, hmmm? What about making it once a month?
This must be Harpers and Rob Fords Idea to turn off the lights , the sooner we get to vote them out the better, why do we let them tell us to do this
Now let’s see= when the province uses less electricity than normal OPG sells the surplus off to neighbouring states and provinces, usually at a loss. In other words, earth hour COSTS the taxpayer!! DUH !!!
I like earth hour. It’s the time of year that reminds me to turn on all my lights, appliances and electronics in my house to make sure all my lights are working and all my stuff is working as it should!
The earth is not my mother and neither is nature. I’m thankful to God for nature and the earth He created. I also I love modern day conveniences, especially electricity. Unfortunately, electricity can not be stored or saved, so just use it.
God is all too frequently used as an excuse by the anti-science and anti-environment crowd to rape and pillage this planet.
Electricity can’t be saved?
May God have mercy on you.
You can not store electricity. It can be ”saved” in terms of usage but not in terms of whats already being produced. In other words, it can not be stockpiled or saved for future use.
Big waste of time. If you want to participate in this nonsense, then go right ahead. Every year I have on all lights and run all appliances. One year, I actually blew a fuse.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Chris Hadfield can see my place from space.
If living without electricity is so grand why only one hour, why don’t all the watermelons (environmentalist green on the outside, commie red on the inside) just go without it all year round
Just another pointless exercise typical of the left; symbolism over substance.
why only once a year for one hr??????? why not everytime you get a chance. i dont turn lights on in my house unless needed.
BUT then again i am sure that if everyone did this all the time, hydro companies would raise the costs, so we wouldn’t be saving money that’s for sure.
Jayo – Water is borrowed and never destroyed.
The natural cycle dictates that. Not sure where you get the idea we have a finite supply of water? When I drink a double double Tims, it gets recycled and sent back to nature after about about an hour or so.
When my automatic lawn sprinklers water the lawn, the grass uses some, which gets returned to the atmosphere and some evapoartes into the atmosphere to return as rain.
Everyone should be conserving energy all the time, every day, 365 days a year. While I agree it’s important to bring awareness to these issues, 1 hour per year won’t do anything.
Electricity and the good it has brought to human kind should be celebrated. In honour of that, I turn on every light in and outside the house and celebrate being human during human hour!! Just happens to be the same time as earth hour.
Two new nuclear waste dumps coming to Ontario soon. To be located close to great lakes. People living near Lake Ontario have high cancer rates. One new dump site proposal is next to, and practically under Lake Huron. You can always tell when a nuke supporter is in the room, fighting against windmills. Nuking the great lakes is foolish. Ontario is full of nuclear corporations that hide behind the environmental global warming issue, and twist it into a carbon only issue, while ignoring nuclear radiation, and waste issues.
I think we can help mother earth everyday when we conserve our precious water. A lot of people are using too much and wasting it and doing nothing to conserve water which I think is more precious and important that any other else. Yes, we have ample water today but how about our future generations? Will they have enough for drinking ? In line with Earth Day, think of conserving our water too not just lights !:)
Steve it can become whatever but its your little part in giving back to this planet that all we(human) constantly take from.
But the wrong way of doing it. Candles are a fossil fuel and emit far more carbon into the atmosphere than the energy used in a light bulb. Power plants will not slow down their turbines just because we turn off our lights. And our lights are probably the lowest usage of electricity in our households. Perhaps if we turned off everything, Refridgerator, washer, dryer, TV, game systems, freezer – but that would mean missing my favorite show! Conserve too much and the electric companies will increase our bills as they won’t be getting as much from us. It’s a vicious cycle and alas I don’t see any way we can avoid destroying our world. Mother nature will shrug us off like a bad cold.
When you are being told to turn off power it reminds me of Krammer not wearing the ribbon (“this guys not wearing a ribbon!”). I’m going to turn every light on this year!
Turn off my computer? Are you kidding?
That’s prime gaming time!
It seems that it has lost its novelty and became to political.