THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city will join in the worldwide campaign of 'Earth Hour' this year with a host of activities. The World Wide Fund (WWF) is all set to celebrate the occasion with a host of activities on Saturday.
The Earth Hour is being organised in the city by WWF in association with the Department of Environment and Climate Change, Department of Museum & Zoos, Energy Management Centre, KSEB, NIMS, and Indus Cycling Embassy among others.
In India, this year's theme is centred around 'GIVEUP TO GIVEBACK', the emphasis being on giving up single-use plastics in daily life. The day will have Mayor VK Prasanth sign the GIVEUP TO GIVEBACK campaign pledge. "We are also in talks with Park Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, which hosts 150 plus companies with around 56,000 employees, and are requesting CEO Hrishikesh Nair to sign the campaign pledge to avoid single-use plastics as much as possible within the Technopark Campus and also push the other IT companies CEOs and employees to do the same," said Renjan Mathew Varghese, state director, WWF-India.
An Earth Hour interactive campaign replete with games will be held at the Museum and Zoo Compound. A cycling campaign will also be organised A musical evening and a candlelight vigil will be observed at the Manaveeyam Veedhi during Earth Hour.
The campaign which began in Australia in 2007 encouraging people to switch off lights has now become a global movement where people unite against global warming and climate change. The campaign in its thirteenth year asks people to switch off all non-essential lights for an hour. This year, the Earth Hour will be observed on Saturday from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.