Pre-reading

Question: Why do people start the Earth Hour event?

Intensive Reading

It is the year 2007. A group of people in Sydney, Australia, start Earth Hour.

时间来到2007年。澳大利亚悉尼的一群人发起了“地球一小时”的活动。

They want people to care about our planet. The idea is simple. People turn off the lights on one day of the year at one specific hour. This lasts 60 minutes.

他们想要人们关心我们的星球。这个想法很简单。人们在一年中某一天的特定一小时内关掉灯。持续60分钟。

Then people save electricity. They help the planet. Some people don’t believe it much. They say that this saves little electricity.

然后人们节省了电。他们帮助了这颗星球。一些人不太相信这件事。他们说这节省的电很少。

Now Earth Hour is very popular. Hundreds of millions of people from all the world join this event.

现在“地球一小时”很受欢迎。全世界上亿人参与这项活动。

This year’s Earth Hour is on March 26. People turn off lights at 8.30 PM. Many cities switch off lights on famous buildings. For example, they are the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, and the Sydney Opera House.

今年的“地球一小时”是3月26日。人们晚上8:30关灯。很多城市把知名建筑上的灯都关掉了。例如，它们有埃菲尔铁塔、帝国大厦，还有悉尼歌剧院。

Notes:

1. care about：关心，担心，注意下和care for的区别，care for指的是“关心，照顾，喜欢”。

2. join：v. 参与，“参与和某人一起做某事”可以说join sb. for sth.。

3. switch off：关掉，switch指的是“开关”，所以switch off指的是“用开关关闭”。

Exercise:

请根据文章内容，回答下述问题：

When is this year’s Earth Hour?