Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text:
One hour in the dark to save the planet... This is the operation Earth HourSaturday night, in several thousand cities and more than 60 countries, by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Here, the famous Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, without light.
More great images from this Earth Hour all over the world, here:
" picture gallery on The Detroit Free Press (Freep.com)
Sydney kicked off the event: the opera house and the bridge over the bay were suddenly plunged into darkness. All over the world, the lights of more than 370 monuments, including the Eiffel Tower, the pyramids of Giza, the Acropolis and the Empire State Building, were turned off. Some of them for only a few minutes, instead of the promised 60 minutes.
The gesture was symbolic. The objective was to raise awareness around the world about energy savings and global warming, nine months before the Copenhagen summit on this topic. The impact in France is estimated at a drop of just over 1% in electricity consumption.
I confess, I didn't do anything special for the planet between 8:30 and 9:30 pm on Saturday night. I was sending an email to a colleague to complete an article, for work...
But this media and symbolic eclipse of electricity reminded me of night flights, during my trips to the East (not ecological at all, when you think of the kerosene consumed by long-haul flights). Seen from the sky, rich and poor countries are easily recognizable. The first ones shine with all their lights, drawing sumptuous luminous mosaics on the ground. In comparison, the second ones seem to have only loupiottes...
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