DM to participate in Earth Hour on March 28 DM to participate in Earth Hour on March 28

Dubai, 18 March 2009: Dubai Municipality will participate in the Earth Hour initiative which will see thousands of lights turned off all over the city from 8:30 pm to 9.30 p.m. on Saturday March 28 "to send a message around the world that we have the power to take action against global warming."

The WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) supported initiative, which began in Sydney, Australia, in 2007, is now a worldwide environmental movement that will see millions of people turn off non-essential lighting. Earth Hour (www.earthhour.org) will roll through 14 time zones, starting in New Zealand and ending in the Pacific Time Zone. So far some 1,672 cities, towns and municipalities in 80 countries have committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the world's first global election between Earth and global warming.

Dubai is the first Arab city to declare its support for Earth Hour and residents in Dubai are urged to switch off all non-essential lights for one hour at 8:30 p.m. local time (1630 GMT) on the day. They were also asked to turn off non-essential appliances "to show how people working together ... can make a difference."

Taking action isn’t difficult and can be as simple as turning off a mobile phone charger when it is not in use, switching off the television or CD player at the wall, rather than leaving it on stand-by, turning off unused lights or making sure office and home computers are completely shut down.