TITLE: Title
Earth Hour Resolution
PURPOSE: To adopt a resolution encouraging participation in Earth Hour on March 25th
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DEPARTMENT: Planning
CONTACT INFORMATION: Randy Dodd 919 918-7326
INFORMATION: Earth Hour, sponsored by World Wildlife Fund, has cemented itself as an effective and annual/ongoing voluntary environmental action, with hundreds of millions of people coming together to respond to climate change by doing something quite simple such as turning off their lights or hosting an event to help raise awareness of climate change. While the global lights out remains an impactful visual call-out, its true impact is being seen in areas and communities fighting climate change on an everyday basis. In its tenth year, Earth Hour 2016 broke records of mass participation, mobilizing a record-breaking 178 countries and territories with: over 10,000 landmarks and monuments switching off their lights; hundreds of thousands of signatures collected online for climate petitions; and enormous outreach via social media. A few examples of previous Earth Hour actions include: hundreds of millions of people became "everyday Super Heroes" for the planet (2014); the "I Will If You Will" campaign, with more than 200,000 individuals accepting a challenge, and astronaut Andr? Kuipers observing the lights off event from the International Space Station (2012); polling in the United States showed that an estimated 90,000,000 Americans participated in "lights out", including iconic landmarks such as Mount Rushmore, the Las Vegas Strip, the Empire State Building and Niagara Falls (2010). Celebrity Earth Hour ambassadors have included South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, President of Vietnam Nguy?n Minh Tri?t, and London Mayor Boris Johnson. Sydney's Herald Sun equated the power savings in the Sydney central business district to "taking 48,613 cars off the road for 1 hour." More informati...
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