Greentech Lead Asia: Canada
and the world turned off the lights on Saturday night to celebrate the 5th anniversary
of WWF’s Earth Hour.
Dubbed the World’s largest campaign for the planet, Earth
Hour has grown in five years from a local event in Sydney, Australia, to a
global phenomenon that attracted 150 countries, over 6494 cities and global
participants from all seven continents in 2012.
2012 saw the highest participation in Earth Hour yet, with
511 Canadian cities participating. Over 100,000 Canadians signed the Earth Hour
Pledge on the WWF website, displaying their commitment to switch off for Earth
Hour and fight climate change all year long.
Toronto was the first city to adopt Earth Hour after it was
launched in Sydney, and the city’s passion for the planet was evident on
Saturday night as hundreds turned out at The Distillery Historic District to
join in a live performance of the newly minted Earth Hour Anthem “When the
Lights Go Down” – Canada’s first ever crowd-sourced song, created just for
Earth Hour. The song was created from thousands of lyrics submitted and voted
on by Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
Montreal also celebrated with music – hundreds of
Montrealers joined Minister Pierre Arcand and comedian Maxime Martin for an
acoustic performance by Chinatown at the Esplanade de la Place des Arts.
The Vancouver Canucks showed the NHL’s support for Earth
Hour with an in-game interactive feature between WWF’s Panda mascot and their
own mascot, Fin, at Saturday’s game against the Calgary Flames.