Brazil's most famous landmark, the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado Hill, had its lights switched off overlooking a much darker than usual Rio de Janeiro city last Saturday. About 100 other Brazilian cities also switched the lights off from 20:30 to 21:30 during Earth Hour [1]. It was the first time that the country has taken part in the global movement to show support for a more sustainable world.
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Photo by Americo Verme/WWS Brazil [2]
Like Brunei [3] and many other countries, Brazil joined Earth Hour for the first time. Reactions ranged from optimistic and supportive to critical and cynical posts. Guilherme Nascimento Valadares, from Papo de Homem [4] [pt] blog, spent some time monitoring reactions on Twitter and counted over 8,000 posts related to relevant tags between 20:45 on Saturday 29 and 6:00 am on Sunday 30th. He concludes:
Fato peculiar. O mais críticos eram justamente os mais conectados, jovens, hypes, espertos. Me corrijam se estiver errado, mas tenho uma forte impressão de que o retrato da juventude produtiva brasileira de hoje – estou falando da turma que saiu da faculdade e já faz o seu $$$ – é um tremendo bundão, cético, hedonista, indolente, inseguro, maria-vai-com-as-outras.
Of those who turned the lights off, many Flickr users took pictures [5] to pass the time. See below a selection of photos uploaded under Creative Commons licenses from Brazil, India, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and Chile:
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Photo by Alexandre E Silva's [7] – Brazil
“Transmitindo a Hora do Planeta ao vivo pelo Ustream.”
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Earth Hour in Bangalore, India – Photo by Earth Hour Global [8]. For a local blogger who reminds us that the country faces a chronic power shortage on a daily basis, observing Earth Hour was a symbol of foolishness. View of My World [9] says:
Bangalore, and large parts of India, have been observing earth hour / earth day / earth night for many many years now. Even this morning there was no power supply to my home between 9 AM – 11 AM.
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Photo by Dani Pontes [10], Brazil
“Nós participamos!!
E aproveitamos pra namorar a luz de velas!! rs”
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Photo by Luciano Joaquim [11], Brazil
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Give earth a chance… photo by CW Ye [13]- Malaysia
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Photo by Max y Miliano [15], Chile
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Photo by Mondayne [17]. Sydney, Australia.
Earth Hour was both disappointing and pointless in Sydney. They didn't even turn the lights off on the Opera House or Bridge really… just a few lights were shut down. I can't imagine they really saved that much power.
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A self portrait by Hsien-Ku [19], Australia.
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