Pledge: I Will If You Will
This year, Earth Hour is on March 23 at 8:30 pm – wherever you are in the world.
This is the hour when the world goes dark, turning off lights as a symbolic gesture to protect the Blue Marble we call home. Since Earth Hour’s inception in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, where 2.2 million Sydneysiders and 2100 businesses turned off their lights for an hour, this movement has spread to include the more than 151 countries and thousands of states, cities, towns and rural communities that have pledged to go dark this year.
In 2012, the I Will If You Will campaign was launched, with more than 200,000 people accepting a challenge at YouTube.com/EarthHour to share what they would be willing to do to save the planet, and what they’d expect done in return. The campaign continues this year, with thousands more committing to help change the world for the better.
The youTube channel is fun to watch, with the pledges ranging from kiteboarding wearing a panda hat if 1,000 people will commit to using reusable tumblers, to an 8th grade class going paperless if 1,000 people commit to planting a tree and a five-year-old Greek boy, who will give up chocolates for a week if 50 people pledge to green their balconies.
There is still time for you to publicly pledge what you will do to help save Mother Earth. Privately, it’s a pledge we can all make at any time, to take steps to help reduce our impact on the planet.
