Dubai: Three days without a mobile phone! Remain silent for two weeks! Six days of fasting outside Ramadan! One might wonder what these statements mean. These are some of the challenges taken up by prominent earth crusaders, if people join in their causes.
The theme for Earth Hour 2012, which falls on March 31 at 8.30pm, is ‘I will if you will', a campaign of challenges that will take the message of environmental action beyond the hour.
The campaign is taking place on a global platform and already a rage on the social media, with people coming up with various challenges ranging from the cutest to the dangerous.
Leading from the front, Jim Leape, Director-General of World Wide Fund (WWF), the torchbearers of the Earth Hour campaign, puts up a challenge that ‘If 10,000 people will go onto www.panda.org/seafood and download the WWF seafood guide, then I will join the WWF team in the Mediterranean to catch and tag bluefin tuna.'
Locally, the Emirates Wildlife Society (WWS-WWF) has tied up with Dewa and Emaar to lead the Earth Hour movement this year, with the famed Earth Walk beginning at Burj Plaza at Downtown Burj Khalifa.
The Earth Hour 2012 campaign in Dubai is being held under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council.
Apart from switching off the lights for Earth Hour, organisers are encouraging people to come up with their challenges and plans to take the action forward.
Some of the prominent figures and companies who have already come up with their challenges are Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Ali Al Nuaimi, also known as the ‘Green Shaikh', Ali Al Saloom of Ask Ali fame, and Virgin Megastore.
YouTube
The Green Shaikh's Challenge is that he will fast for six days outside of Ramadan if 6,000 people in six weeks from April 1 pledge to recycle an unused medicine by giving it to someone needy.
Ask Ali's Challenge is that he will not use all of his three mobiles for three days, if 10,000 people pledge not to use plastic bags.
Talking about the campaign Ida Tillisch, Acting Director-General of EWS-WWF, said: "The idea is to involve as many people as possible into environmental action to bring a positive change. The beauty of the campaign is that anybody can participate and can come up with any challenge that will help in the environmental cause."
To participate one has to come up with an idea and upload a video on YouTube announcing the challenge.
This year 1.8 billion people in 135 countries and 5,251 cities are expected to participate in Earth Hour.
Dewa: the dimmer the better
Taking the Earth Hour message of conservation beyond, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority is challenging its customers to save more power and water than last year's campaign did.
In 2011 Earth Hour, 204,000kWh of power was saved, while 122,000kg of carbon emissions were also prevented.
This year the authority is expecting greater participation and obviously higher savings: "We are expecting more people and companies to join the movement and switch off the lights and non-essential appliances for an hour," said Saeed Al Tayer, CEO and managing director of Dewa.
He also challenged people to continue in their efforts to reduce per capita power consumption in Dubai, which went down slightly last year but is still one of the highest in the world.
According to figures released by Dewa, Dubai's per capita power consumption in 2011 was 15,669kWh, down from 16,022kWh in 2010.
However, the overall consumption has increased marginally due to the increase in the number of customers.
