ARMENIA WILL JOIN THE EARTH HOUR EVENT TONIGHT
Marianna Gyurjyan

"Radiolur"
28.03.2009 15:15

For the first time Armenia will participate in the Earth Hour
event. Today Earth Hour is an annual international event created by
the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund), held on
the last Saturday of March, that asks households and businesses to
turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one
hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate
change. Based on an idea successfully executed in Thailand in 2005,
it was pioneered by WWF Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald in
2007, and achieved worldwide participation in 2008.

Earth Hour will take place today, at 8:30 pm, local time.

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first
global election, between Earth and global warming.

For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities,
race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch
as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or
leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world
to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be
presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference
in Copenhagen 2009.

Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE
EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this n umber is growing everyday.

According to the Head of the Public Relations Department of the World
Wide Fund for Nature Armenia Office Arthur Kholetsyan, "the objective
of the event is to unite the humanity around one idea. I can’t say
how much energy will be saved, but I will say that this is a global
event that takes place all over the globe. There are few precedents
that unite the humanity around one idea."

Astrologists also join the Earth Hour event, calling it
Dark Night. Dark night sky is very important for astrological
observations. Many week stars will become visible and new inventions
can be made in this period. President of the Union of Astrologists
of Armenia, Areg Mikaelyan told "Radiolur" that "the illumination of
the city disturbs the observations." "Of course, this one hour will
not give much, but dark sky is very important to us. During this hour
we will try to observe several space objects, which are not visible
when the city is illuminated," he said.