Friday 27 March 2009

The Earth Hour in Bucharest


Buildings immersed into darkness, candle lit shows, astronomical observations or unplugged concerts. This is the way our town will celebrate Earth Hour in Romania, that will be officially organized for the first time in 2009.

In Bucharest,the authorities have confirmed turning off the lights of some symbolic buildings: the Romanian Athenaeum, the National Theater, the Town Hall, The National Art Museum, the Romanian Opera, the Intercontinental Hotel. The House of the People (Parliament Palace), the largest civil building in the world, will have its exterior lighting off for an hour, starting at 20:30. The electricity savings at the Palace of Parliament will be about 1700 kW, which means 0,825 tons of CO2 emissions less. Reduced lighting in the Constitution Square will allow WWF volunteers to form the number 60, the symbol of the event, using candles. In the Constitution Square an unplugged concert will take place and the Bucharest Astronomy Club will install two telescopes for the interested people to see the planets whose visibility is usually very low because of light pollution in our capital.


In addition, over 30 companies have announced participation in Earth Hour, communicating the campaign message to their employees and customers. They will discontinue the lighting at their headquarters in Bucharest and the country.

2 comments:

caluad said...

Our Walls went dark for an hour. But I don't think it is enough. And I'm not th eonly one. There were other emblematic buildings that coudl have gone dark.
Everyday individual actions could be more effective than a dark hour. But these 60 minutes show our willingness to change, dont' they?

ivasil said...

From our point of view, this is a beginning and a significant one. People are becoming aware of the need to react, and I mean ordinary people. There are many campaigns in the media, such as the one for reforestation of the areas which were covered with woods a few years ago and now are destroyed by the rains and soil sliding, a campaign called "Romania Grows Roots". Maybe I will write something about it. And there are more. So, hopefully, things will start moving...