This year, Earth Hour is bigger than ever. According to the official site, there are 172 countries participating in the big switch off event of the year. In London alone, some of the tourist attractions and well known buildings such as Albert Hall and the London Eye are powering down tomorrow night for one hour, while back in South Africa there are Earth Hour events happening all over the place, a festival in Cape Town, switch offs in Hermanus and Greenpeace has Durban covered. It’s been amazing to see the support building over the past few weeks and I’m honestly amazed by some of the creative ways people are really using this as an opportunity to create awareness about Climate Change.

Check out what’s happening in your area over here –> www.earthhour.org/tracker

For me, Earth Hour is going to be a simple affair. We are moving this weekend and as such I’m hoping that come 8:30pm, we’ll be done with most of the move, and sitting outside on our patio, perhaps for the last time, with a braai going and some candles. In keeping with the whole spirit of powering down I’ll be asking my son to play the guitar for us. In fairness it’s not that unusual a night for us but the difference will be that instead of leaving the odd light on inside, it will be a total black out.

But at the heart of it, is the very real issue that we are the last generation with the power to really do anything about climate change. During this year’s Earth Hour I hope that I can use that hour to reflect on what more I could do as an individual and what more we could do as a family.

In the words of Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Use your power and support Earth Hour, because there is no Planet B.