SYDNEY: This year, on March 25, people in 7,000 cities across 170 countries will switch off their lights from 8:30-9:30pm to mark Earth Hour 2017 and participate in World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) global campaign to show their commitment to the planet. But the event is more than just turning off our lights to take part in a global movement. It is also more than just talking about climate change and a multitude of other environmental problems plaguing the planet we call our home. When all major monuments around the world will go dark on Saturday and when we will turn off all non-essential lights for Earth Hour, our aim should be to educate ourselves, our families and friends, our communities and whoever we can reach out to, about the critical environmental issues confronting the planet. By turning up the dark, our goal should be to take concrete no matter how small steps to reduce our environmental footprint and leave the world a better place for our next generations from how we found it. This is what the Earth Hour, a movement started by WWF as a lights-off event in Sydney, Australia seeks to achieve. The need to raise awareness about climate change, habitat and environment degradation, species loss and resource shortage has never been greater. According to WWF Living Planet Report 2016, species populations of vertebrate animals have decreased in abundance by 58 percent between 1970 and 2012. The most common threat? Loss and degradation of habitat, accelerated by human impact on the environment. By 2012, the biocapacity equivalent of 1.6 earths was needed to provide the natural resources and services humans consumed in that year.