Today Saturday 5 cities in Bolivia will turn off their non essential lights

Posted on 27 marzo 2009

Earth Hour will be from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Santa Cruz de la Sierra, March 28th, 2009.--- Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the first city in Latin America to join this world campaign, has chosen, just like Rio de Janeiro and the Bolivian city of Cochabamba, one of its most iconic monuments in the city, the Redeemer Christ and its adjacent popular Monseñor Rivero Avenue, lined with restaurants, bars and cafes, to express its adhesion to Earth Hour by turning off its non-essential lights and opting to attend the public by candle light during the one hour long event. The event, due to begin at 8:00 p.m. includes the presence of local, regional and national authorities as well as artistic and cultural presentations. In addition to the darkening of the Redeemer Christ, other buildings such as El Deber, CRE, and the facade and web portal of the Departmental Government will also join in; as will the facades of the Coca Cola bottling facilities throughout Bolivia, to mention a few. In addition, other cities in Bolivia –La Paz, Cochabamba, Trinidad and Puerto Quijarro– have also joined Earth Hour.

WWF Bolivia, the conservation organization, in collaboration with the Municipal Governments of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, La Paz, Cochabamba, Trinidad and Puerto Quijarro, the Departmental Governments of Santa Cruz and Beni, the Electricity Superintendence, the Rural Cooperative for Electricity (CRE), Coserelec, Electropaz, Elfeosa and Elfec, with support also from El Deber, Coca Cola and Banco de Crédito, among over 70 institutions and companies, invite everyone to be a part of “Earth Hour Bolivia 2009”.

Mr. Jerges Mercado, the Superintendent for Electricity, explained that this initiative is now part of the campaigns “Energy Efficiency”, better known for its efforts in changing –free of charge– incandescent light bulbs for those that are energy saving, and “Use Energy in Off Peak Hours”, which reached more than 70,000 children in various cities throughout Bolivia. “Bolivia will stop producing 70 to 100 tons of CO2 if 50% of the population turns off their lights on March 28th”, added Mercado, which is the equivalent of the amount of carbon dioxide that 350 to 500 trees absorb in 100 years. A huge breath for the planet.

Earth Hour, a WWF Climate Change campaign, is a call to action regarding the need to find solutions to global warming. For its third consecutive year, cities and communities will turn off their lights on the last Saturday of March from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., as a symbolic act that encourages individuals and companies to save energy on a daily basis by unplugging electrical appliances that aren’t being used and using energy saving light bulbs in areas of high use, among others.

The target set by the Earth Hour 2009 organizers is to reach a billion people in 1000 cities. To date, this goal has been greatly surpassed with more than 2800 cities which have signed up and committed to turning off their lights in their most emblematic buildings. From the small island nations of the South Pacific to the densely populated cities of the Americas, millions of people from all walks of life and corners of the world will participate in Earth Hour, casting their vote in the world’s first global election between Earth and global warming.

66 national capitals and 9 of the10 most populated metropolises on the planet have confirmed their participation in this year’s event, along with some of the worlds most prominent cites, including:
• New York
• London
• Beijing
• Paris
• Moscow
• Singapore
• Berlin • Rome
• Athens
• Cairo
• Washington DC
• Rio de Janeiro
• Dubai
• Mexico City • Sydney
• Mumbai
• Kuala Lumpur
• Toronto
• Copenhagen
• Manila
• Istanbul • Nairobi
• Bangkok
• Los Angeles
• Barcelona
• Hong Kong
• Buenos Aires
• Cape Town

The Great Pyramids of Giza, the world’s greatest symbol of the power of collective action, head up a list of 829 landmarks around the world switching off their lights for Earth Hour, including:
• Eiffel Tower in Paris
• Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing
• Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro
• Big Ben in London
• Empire State Building in New York
• Acropolis in Athens
• Colosseum in Rome
• Table Mountain in Cape Town
• Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
• Arc de Triomphe in Paris
• Sydney Opera House.
• Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur
• Las Vegas Strip • CN Tower in Toronto
• Burj Dubai (world’s tallest unconstructed building)
• Tapei 101 (world’s tallest constructed building)
• Millennium Stadium in Cardiff
• The London Eye
• Niagara Falls in Canada
• Gaudi Building in Barcelona
• The Merlion in Singapore
• Wembley Stadium Arch in London
• Sears Tower in Chicago
• Symphony of Lights in Hong Kong
• Dome of St. Peter in Rome
• Edinburgh Castle

Earth Hour’s open-source nature has been the driving force behind the campaign:
• Earth Hour has 1.1 million online social network friends
• Earth Hour videos are being viewed online every 0.8 seconds
• Earth Hour is regularly trending amongst the most tweeted topics on Twitter
• The term ‘Earth Hour’ has appeared online close to 1 million times in the past twenty-four hours

Earth Hour 2009 organizers have made a final call to the global community to help create a compelling statement on the future of the planet.

“Help make Earth Hour a powerful statement on climate change that can’t be ignored by turning off your lights tonight at 8.30pm in your time zone.” said Earth Hour Executive Director, Andy Ridley.

Adeco, Biodiversidad Bolivia, Cine Center, Editorial El País, El Nuevo Día, FexpoCruz, Fridosa, Fun TV, La Pascana Center, Mahs, Nuevatel - Viva, Redesma, Revista Mundo Seguro and Tigo, among others, are some of the over 70 companies that have joined this campaign, expressing their support through the press, radio or TV, text messages, billboards, mailings, emails, web pages and others in efforts to call attention to climate change.

Between 50 to 100 million people all over the world turned off their lights during the 2008 Earth Hour. In 2009, millions of people from all walks of life and ages will join Earth Hour showing the world that it is possible to take action against global warming.

Go Bolivia! Do your part! Turn off your lights! Join Earth Hour 2009 by turning off your lights at
8:30 p.m. on Saturday March 28th and signing up on www.earthhour.org.

For further information:
http://www.panda.org/who_we_are/wwf_offices/bolivia/our_work/earth_hour_bolivia/
Nardyn Pizarro: [email protected]; Tel. (+591-3) 3430609, Cell: (+591) 76600885