Why people in Longford should 'switch off' as part of Earth Hour 2019

The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Richard Bruton TD has today (Saturday March 30) encouraged people to mark Earth Hour 2019 by switching off their lights between the hours of 8.30pm and 9.30pm.

Earth Hour is a global movement, which started off in Sydney in 2007 as a symbolic ‘lights out’ movement, since then Earth Hour has grown, becoming an annual worldwide event in which millions of people take part from over 180 countries around the globe.

It inspires people to take action for our planet and the environment and has gained the support of many social media influencers and celebrities who encourage people to take part.

It is more than just an event, it is a mass movement that has achieved massive environmental impact, including legislation changes by harnessing the power of the people.

Public buildings in Ireland will be switching off for the event such as, Ross Castle, Rock of Cashel, Trim Castle, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Leinster House/Government Buildings and the Custom House.

Minister Bruton said, “Earth Hour is a great opportunity to reflect on our individual impact on the environment. We have a very small window of opportunity, whereby we can change the trajectory and set ourselves on a sustainable footing. We must make urgent changes. I am determined that the government will take the lead, but we will need each individual person to also contribute.”

Although Earth Hour is a nonprofit organisation run by WWF, crowd funding has enabled environmental work to be carried out across the planet. Some of this work involves:

• The planting of half a million trees in order to protest deforestation of ecosystems across the globe, in Uganda
• Pushing a bill through congress with over 120,000 signatures, which focuses in on protecting the country’s seas from oil pollution in Russia.
• Protecting 3.4 million hectares of the sea, in Argentina, which raises the percentage of sea protection from 1% to 4%

Earth Hour gives people the opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint, which greatly affects the climate and will therefore lower the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere.

To participate in Earth Hour, all you have to do is switch off your lights from 8.30pm to 9.30pm this evening.