If you have not yet heard of the Earth Hour, then welcome to earth; you must be from Mars. Maybe you have been hibernating in your cave, otherwise. Anyway, cities across the planet turned off light for one hour to show their support for the cause of reducing carbon emissions and dealing with global warming. So did we do the same thing? Are you kidding me? We do that daily in India, at least here in Hyderabad. The power is off for at least an hour daily and we can’t switch the lights on even if we wanted to! Now talk about being huge contributors to the global cause.
Anyway, Tel Aviv was the first city of 24 around the world to turn off electric lights for one hour as part of the global earth hour effort to raise awareness about the need to act against global warming. The venture was kicked off atop the city’s Azrieli skyscraper by, among others, President Shimon Peres, who has embraced ‘greenism’ and is promoting many environmental efforts. This really is cool from a country that I most often hear news of strife and war from.
At 8 p.m. sharp, businesses and citizens lost their lights for one hour in the city. Mayor Ron Huldai presided over the countdown until the Tel Aviv municipality building behind him went black. During the evening, about 40,000 people gathered in Rabin Square, where an Israeli band was giving a concert. I suppose the concert was in the dark and no power was used. That must have been really unique.
Israel also moved the clock forward Thursday night, beginning the 191 days of daylight savings time that’s said to save Israeli households up to 25 million NIS in electricity expenses. It seems that the little nation is doing well indeed. Now as far as we are concerned, we are just praying that our ‘Daily Earth Hours’ get reduced.
