Earth Hour: Turn Off, Tune In, Rise Up (Poem)

Feel the power of Earth Hour
From 20:30 to 21:30
On Saturday the 27th of March 2021.

This is the time to turn off
Non-essential lights
Which dazzle and disorientate wildlife,
And which blind us to our own fragility,
In a world on the brink
Of ecological catastrophe.

Though we may sometimes take our
Precious life-support system for granted,
This beautiful green and blue planet
Stands apart,
Against the breathless darkness
Of an inhospitable solar system.

The climate crisis has
No boundary in space or time.
We are all inter-connected.
We share this planetary ecosystem
With our ancestors,
With each other,
And with future generations
Who may well cast a cold eye
On our unforgivable shortsightedness.

While many of us may
Carelessly live in the moment,
Surrounded by bright and shiny
Things that distract us,
Future generations will have to live
With the momentous consequences
Of our devastating actions
And of our costly inaction.
We are now almost out of time
To change the fate
Of this burning planet.

So join us at SearchScene
In taking the time to
Feel the power of Earth Hour:
Turn off,
Tune in,
Rise up!

By Ciara Muldoon
Co-founder of SearchScene.com, the charitable search engine that protects the planet and your privacy while you search the web.

Written 12 March 2021

This poem was inspired by the American psychologist, Timothy Leary’s, counter-culture slogan from the 1960s, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” According to Leary, a variation of the phrase was originally coined by Canadian philosopher, Marshall McLuhan.