Instead of basking in electric light watching television or just be occupied with the mundane tasks of entertainment at night, Boholanos switch off their lights and instead take on their bikes and get to Tagbilaran City streets in solidarity with the Earth Hour, March 29.

And instead of a 60 minutes switching off, the bike for the earth hour organizers hope the estimated 18 kilometer ride across the city’s main thoroughfares and back roads would pedal for the awareness of fighting climate change, an event that could go as long as an hour and a half of good old biking experience for a cleaner environment.

Organizers Bol-anon Cyclist, in support with the Earth Hour, they have posted invitation to bikers and their families in an event that gets them from City Square at 7:00 PM to Booy, Taloto, Manga, Tiptip, San Isidro, Dao, Cogon and back to Poblacion in the heart of the city.

By switching off for an hour or more, power generation is slackened and the burnt fuels’ effects to the environment could be lessened.

In the Philippines, organizers World Wild Life Fund for Nature also advocated for other meaningful activities especially on fund generation, awareness campaign and the likes.

For safety reasons too, riders are strictly asked to wear helmets, blinkers and bright colored jerseys, to be visible in the traffic.

This also gets Bohol into unity mode with the largest global environment activity that started in Sydney, Australia in 2007.

Bohol also joins the country as among the 150 nations struggling to impact on climate change.

The Philippines – considered by Earth Hour Global as a hero country – has held the top spot since 2009!

This too as by around 8:30 PM on Saturday, March 29, millions of people around the world take a stand against climate change by switching off your lights for one hour or over (60+).

It may be recalled that In 2006, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Australia inspired Sydney-siders to show their support for climate change action in the first ever Earth Hour event. In doing so, it showed everyone – from children to CEOs and politicians – that they have the power to change the world they live in.

In March 2007, 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses in Sydney, Australia, turned their lights out for one hour to take a stand against climate change.

In 2008, the initial plan was just to take Earth Hour to the rest of Australia. But then the City of Toronto, Canada, signed up and it wasn’t long before 35 countries and almost 400 cities and towns were part of the event. It said something compelling to the world: that the climate challenges facing our planet are so significant that change needs to be global.

With the invitation to “switch off” extended to everyone, Earth Hour quickly became an annual global event. It’s scheduled on the last Saturday of every March – closely coinciding with the equinox to ensure most cities are in darkness as it rolled out around the Earth, according to the WWF Earth Hour website.

Visayas Earth Hour load down
34.67 MW,  Bohol at 1.3 MW

TAGBILARAN CITY, April 1, (PIA) –The Earth Hour campaign, or roughly 60 minutes plus of action to mitigate carbon emissions and give the earth its much needed rest from unsustainable energy resources caused a noted load drop all over the Visayas.

Part of the Earth Hour campaign asked people to voluntarily join the one-hour switch off as the campaign states go dim for the environment.

During the simultaneous switch-off activities between 8:30-9:30 PM March 28, 2015, a Department of Energy official in the Visayas noted 34.67 megawatts of load drop.

Engr. Jose Rey Maleza, citing National Grid Corporation of the Philippines’ Systems Operation said Earth Hour 2015, tracked the 34.67MW load drop in the Visayas.

Through his facebook post, Engr Maleza, DOE Visayas Supervising Science Research Specialist, who apparently monitored NGCP systems on that night, put Samar Leyte topping Visayas load drop at 11.61 mega watts, during the switch-off.

The same load drop was noted in Negros, where load dropped to 8.69 MW. Meanwhile, Cebu Maximum Load Dropped to 6.68MW, he shared.

Panay Island, on the other hand experienced a maximum load drop of 6.39MW.

Bohol on the other hand had 1.3MW load drop, the least in the region.

The move to popularize the earth hour came as its main convenor: World Wildlife Fund started calling for action against the increasing global average temperature caused by building concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Scientists have posited that the fast increase in greenhouse gas accumulation is largely due to burning of fossil fuels used in energy production.

The move to switch-off in an hour at least, would allow communities to rethink about their priorities for the environment, Bohol Earth Hour participants said.

In Bohol, other than committing to switch off their lights and go off grid, Bohol bikers pedaled around Tagbilaran City and Dauis, using their bikes’ blinkers in an Earth Hour Ride.

This is also in line with the interior and local government call for local officials to champion the campaign for sustainable energy.

In Tagbilaran however, only very few joined the switch off, riders noted.