KARACHI: At 8.30pm on Saturday the Sindh Assembly Building, CM House, Governor House, Sindh High Court, the Quaid-i-Azam mausoleum, Karachi airport along with so many other city landmarks switched off their lights for 60 minutes to embrace the shadows during Earth Hour.

All over Pakistan there were 90 such landmarks where the lights were switched off. In doing so the people of these places once again became part of a global movement started by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) from Sydney, Australia, in 2007. That movement has now grown into 162 countries in which the people of 8,000 towns use their power to change climate change. Here in Pakistan, people of our 300 towns are taking part in the exercise.

As the Earth Hour was observed, TV artist Saba Hameed, a WWF-Pakistan ambassador, said that everyone in the country should be aware of the effects of climate change. “It should be everybody’s concern no matter what age group or strata of society he or she hails from,” she said.

Designer Deepak Perwani, another WWF-Pakistan ambassador, also highlighted the importance of the issue. “It saddens me that we are taking away the colours of this planet with our indifference towards the environment, particularly climate change,” he said.

WWF-Pakistan’s regional director, Sindh, Rab Nawaz said that he hoped that the exercise would showcase to the world Pakistan’s commitment to Earth for action on climate change and unity towards saving the natural beauty.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play