Great Ways to Invest Your Time During Earth Hour
Do you have any plans for Earth Hour? Traditionally, every year, people around the world observe Earth Hour, which this year lands on 23 March, by switching off their lights at 8:30 pm. However, you can also do other meaningful things to help the planet.
Did you know that by some estimates, animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the world’s entire transportation systems combined? The meat, egg, and dairy industries use up one-third of the world’s fresh water and one-third of global cropland for feed. According to the 2017 Pulse of the Fashion Industry report, published by Global Fashion Agenda in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group, cow leather is the most polluting material in fashion, while silk and wool are among the five most environmentally damaging materials.
Spend Earth Hour helping to create a kind and sustainable world with the following ideas:
- Watch animal rights documentaries. Check out this list of powerful films that help explain how speciesism – the misguided belief that some species are more important than others – hurts everyone and the planet.
- Read a book by candlelight. Use Earth Hour to read about how our treatment of animals is directly linked to key crises, including pandemics, epidemics, antibiotic resistance, the climate catastrophe, and pollution, affecting us today in PETA India director Poorva Joshipura’s new book, Survival at Stake.
- Order our free vegan starter kit. PETA India’s handy guide to vegan eating is accessible and inspiring. Share it with a friend, or take the vegan pledge yourself.
- Snack on delicious vegan foods in the dark! Play a game of guessing what you’re eating, safe in the knowledge that you’re ingesting fruit, vegetables, grains, beans, and legumes – not somebody’s flesh or secretions.
- Make environmentalism go viral. Share PETA India’s video about how everyone can help save the planet by eating vegan on social media to encourage your friends to make kind choices for the planet.
- Wear your values. Cows, buffaloes, crocodiles, snakes, dogs, and other animals are abused for fashion. Take PETA India’s leather-free pledge, encourage your friends to join you, and shop vegan.
- Put pen to paper. Write to your favourite retailers to urge them to offer vegan fashion that doesn’t support the cruel fur, wool, mohair, angora, down, exotic-skins, and silk industries.
- Tell restaurant chains that you want to purchase only vegan food to help animals and the environment. Sign action alerts asking KFC, McDonald’s, and Burger King to add vegan items to their menus.
- Eat your way to a greener world! Munch on some scrumptious vegan goodies from our 2023 PETA India Vegan Food Awards, ranging from NOTO’s Mango & Raspberry Frozen Dessert to The Baklava Box Vegan Pista Kunafa.
- Do some dirty work! Use the hour to clean up trash from local streets or waterways – and then enjoy a vegan snack that’s kind to the oceans and rivers.
- Plant trees or gardens. Spend Earth Hour making your surroundings greener. Plant trees, flowers, or vegetables in your backyard or local community garden. Trees help mitigate the effects of the climate catastrophe by absorbing carbon dioxide. Gardens help create habitats for insects and pollinators.
- Pledge to go plastic-free. Remember that avoiding plastic applies to the food we eat, not just its wrapping. Abandoned fishing gear is the most harmful form of marine debris for animals.
While we can’t achieve every Earth-friendly suggestion on this list within 60 minutes, there’s one choice we can make that will have a huge impact on the environment: pledging to live vegan!
Let’s use Earth Hour to help the planet – and all the sentient beings who live on it.
