This morning, I notice an interesting initiative online: Turning off lights for one hour from 8:30 to 9:30 at night of March 27. This is one content of an environment protection activity called One Hour for the Earth, initiated by WWF. Till I glimsed the proposal, there have been 3700 cities in the world promised to take part in this activity, and in China, 33 cities will join the chorus of global environmentalists. I browsed the information about the 33 cities and regretfully found that Harbin was not in the “noble”list. We harbiners are always going numb when comes to such meaningful activities.

But I decide to do something during that hour. The most difficult thing for me will be how to pursuade my wife to support me. Every weekends, if has nothing more important to cope with, she will be spellbounded by a programme, named as Making progress everyday, of Hunan Satelite Television till 10:30 at night. So, I manage to coax her to resist the tempetation of that programme by initiating a roaming outside under clear night shy. She agree with me after I tell her what this hour means.  We turn off all lights of our room and go out to an expanse in our residence zone. To my amazement, there are more person here than before. When I scan the windows of buildings around me, I notice that more rooms are black. I begin to understand that I am not alone, more and more people in my city are voluntarily take part in this activity. The night of Harbin is still chilly and the gound is still covered with a layer of ice, on which surface, vehicle tires left deep troughs. It is a little bumpy when walkinng on it. But my neighbours are not heeding it at all. They walk fast along the perimeter of the playground to let themselives parry off the chewing up of cold wind. I and my wife join them. The sky is so clear that every costellation is easy to be discerned. This is a moon-less night sky, with stars blinking hither and thither. I think they must be surprised at the earth and see the miracle of human beings.    

They are witnessing that in Peking, the lights of the Forbidden City, together with other landmark buildings, such as the Nest, Water cube, National opera theatre, etc, are turning off one by one. They are witnessing that in Chendu, a panda named Milan, the promotion envoy of One Hour for the Earth Activity, is leading 13 million residents of this city to trun off their lights.  They are noticing that in Xian, thousands of civilians are byholding the turning off the lights in Dayanta Square. At the same time, splendid and imposing Dayan pogoda left its grand silouette against night sky.  

Yes, we are acting. We are all caring about our Mother Earth. Though we have still not found effective ways to carry out a sustainable development, we would find them only if we all have strong environment consciences and mobilize every one to join the army of environmentalists.