On Saturday March 30th, the city of Mérida, Yucatán turned off lights at 8:30 p.m. in a call for global action against the global threat that climate change represents.
El Monumento a la Patria and el Palacio Municipal were both darkened for an hour on the evening of Saturday March 30th. And the same measure was taken in several other cities around the world.
This symbolic gesture was insittuted in Sydney, Australia, back in 2007, and it soon spreaded to more than 180 countries all over the globe.
In Hong Kong, major buildings turned off their non-essential lights and the city’s popular tourist attraction, the Symphony of Lights, was canceled for the night as part of this initiative.
Paris, the City of Lights, dimmed its Eiffel Tower, while in Athens, the Parthenon temple went totally dark.
The Empire State Building also disappeared into the Manhattan skyline.
In Yucatan, where environmental issues are at the forefront, the state and municipal administrations headed by Mauricio Vila and Renán Barrera respectively, endorsed this global campaign, in a sign of solidarity with the rest of the world.
Hora de la Tierra en Mérida (Photo: La Verdad)
“In the City of Mérida we connect with the planet! Following the global call of celebration for the planet, we carried out the symbolic shutdown of the Monument to the Fatherland and the Municipal Palace, supporting our commitment to fight against climate change. #HagamosElCambio,” the city’s Ayuntamerida Twitter Account stated in Spanish.
Beyond any symbolism, Yucatan State Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal has promoted a statewide Zero Waste strategy and has pronounced that his government will fight against pollution, water contamination and other environmental threats.
In that sense, the new environmental policies established in the state Development Plan 2018-2024, presented a few days ago, are 100% aligned with the objectives of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations Development Program.
TYT Newsroom with information from La Verdad / CNN
