World cities to go dark as part of efforts to fight climate change

[Robbien]

Source: AP

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Australia will be one of the first countries in the world to turn off its lights for an hour Saturday night as part of a global campaign to raise awareness about climate change. Sydney _ with its iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge _ was among hundreds of cities and towns in more than 35 nations promising to go dark, organizers said.

«What's amazing is that it's transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea,» said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. «It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody.

Organizers see the event as a way to encourage the world to conserve energy. While all lights are unlikely to be cut, it is the symbolic darkening of monuments, businesses and individual homes they are most eagerly anticipating.
Cities in Fiji and New Zealand will be the first to cut lights as clocks strike 8 p.m. Two hours later, lights will go off at Australia's most famous landmarks and in thousands of shops, apartments and houses nationwide. Cities elsewhere across Asia, Europe and North America will follow.

One of the last major cities to participate with be San Francisco, California _ home to the soon-to-be dimmed Golden Gate Bridge.

«Earth Hour is about everyone and every organization, from individuals to global companies, joining together to own a shared problem _ climate change,» Ridley said. «The real goal for me is the number of people who take part. Earth Hour debuted last year in Sydney and a reported 2 million people and 2,000 businesses participated, organizers said. They said the result was a 10.2 percent reduction in the city's greenhouse gas emissions for the hour.
«I hope participants take away the knowledge that everything you do, however small it is, counts,» Ridley said.


Read more: http://www.pr-inside.com/world-cities-to-go-dark-as-r508876.htm

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8pm to 9pm This Saturday

[junior college]

1. I laughed when they sent out the email

that informed all of us office workers that we were participating in this. It said something like This coming Saturday between the hours of 8pm and 9pm we will be turning off all of our lights in a effort to reduce our carbon footprint...." Saturday? 8pm? The freaking lights are always off on Saturday at 8pm.

[Robbien]

2. f you haven’t heard about Earth Hour by now, you’re probably living in a cave.

says international newspapers.

I say, you're probably living in a cave or living in the U S of A where the event is barely given a mention in most of the media.

[WCGreen]

3. Now if Reverend Wright had announced he was for it....

[jimnasium]

4. I bet it would look cool on a satellite pic...

Time to break out the telescope - may finally get some decent stargazing...

[ConcernedCanuk]

6. Speaking of Satellite pix, here's one of the Blackout in 2003

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more at http://groups.msn.com/Dcamper/powerblackoutaug14152003.msnw

[Psephos]

10. Wow, cool pic n/t

[Critters2]

21. Wow! That's amazing! nt

[Doctor Cynic]

28. That's a fake. Fake. Fake.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/space/blackout.asp

[Hyper_Eye]

5. Has anyone taken a look at Google's front page? They turned out the lights. n/t

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. Yup - I snagged a screenshot - not sure if it is permanent or not, so here it is

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[Robbien]

8. Cool. Online news reports say that Canada is really embracing Earth Hour

and making a lot of plans, going all out for it.

Is that what you see actually happening where you are?

[HuffleClaw]

16. people sure did where i live in bluewaterland

coffee shops and such

[Spazito]

27. Here is a good article on the participation in Canada, it was very good!

Canadians dim lights to mark Earth Hour

Toronto's CN Tower and Montreal's Mount Royal Cross are among the Canadian landmarks that curbed their electricity usage to mark Earth Hour, an attempt to raise awareness of climate change.

snip

Toronto's CN Tower and Montreal's Mount Royal Cross are among the Canadian landmarks that curbed their electricity usage to mark Earth Hour, an attempt to raise awareness of climate change.

snip

Parliament Hill also dimmed its lights Saturday as part of the event.

snip

About 100,000 Canadians signed an online pledge to participate. Another 4,000 businesses signed up.

more

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080329/earth_hour_080329/20080329?hub=Canada

[jimnasium]

12. My iGoogle page is still white

with my daylight earth theme.

Guess the themes aren't affected...

[HuffleClaw]

15. that looks some cool n/t

[superkia]

9. Hopefully everyon goes out and stays way later then 9p.m. for...

two reasons. Obviously the first would be a larger statement being made and more of an effort and the second would be the possibility of a 9p.m. power surge hitting our outdated electrical infrastructure. At least if we took out the power to the east coast or something though, the media would have to actually cover this, I have seen nothing about this except for on the internet so far.

You would think the media would drive this, it would mean the possibility of more people out putting money into the economy?

[ConcernedCanuk]

11. "You would think the media would drive this," - yeah, - like telling the truth about the war

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wishful thinking.

[lovuian]

13. its dark at my house

;woohoo:

[Jersey Ginny]

14. I just enjoyed a fun, light-free family hour with my kids.

A candle and a flashlight and my fireplace insert glowing and we played games around the fire. Now my kids are asleep I believe because their bodies responded to the darkness as nature intended. Nice night. Now I'll read and go to sleep. I recommend participating in this.

[calimary]

20. We just had a quiet hour out on the back porch. All quiet and dark inside. Cat outside with us,

dog snoozing indoors.

Nice night here, too, although not all the neighbors participated. I posted earlier that if my son were here, he'd be hanging out and playing acoustic guitar. His guitar teacher just taught him "Blackbird." Oy - typing is tough with one hand - the cat wants to be up here in my lap, too. Trying to balance the laptop with my other hand. But I like having the cat in my lap.

All is mellow. :)

[DesertRat]

17. 15 minutes until lights out here

I have the candles lit.

[Robbien]

18. It is the greatest feeling to be looking out the window

as you turn off the final lights and see some of your neighbors houses go dim with candlelight. Have fun with it.

Peace.

[Bigmack]

19. It was dark at our house

tho I confess that I remembered two minutes late..... but better late than never I reckon. This international hour of darkness was actually a little bitty ray of light. Here's hoping..... Ms Bigmack

[zanne]

24. Here, too.

We lit a candle and stayed put so we wouldn't trip over the cats.

[InvisibleTouch]

22. I'm seriously tempted to do an "Earth Hour" every week now.

Last night was so neat that I want to try to fit this in once a week if I can remember. We turned out all the lights and unplugged the noisy air filters (they're actually pretty quiet, but noisy enough to get on my nerves on an ongoing basis), no computer, no TV, just silence and candlelight. At first I thought, "What am I going to to with myself for a whole hour with nothing to do?" - but the time went by fast. Dogs had already been fed and were settled peacefully, and I talked to them in whispers, and everything was calm and quiet. Of course after 9 I jumped back on the net, but it was a nice break from the world. And for the world, I hope!

[nwliberalkiwi]

23. First Darkness

We did our hour of darkness here in New Zealand. So nice to live in a progressive country!!!!!!!!!!

[DesertRat]

25. So we shut everything off and lit some candles....

When the lights went back on there was a scorpion crawling across the wall.

:scared:

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Carbon dioxide from CFL bulbs (using coal-produced electricity) v. candles

1 kWh of electricity produces 966g CO2 from a coal-fired station, using a typical figure

So switching off a 20W CFL bulb for an hour saves 0.02 kWh, or 19g CO2

Candle wax is, chemically, approximately (CH2) n times; so, using molecular weights, (12+1*2)=14g of wax produces (12+16*2)=44g of CO2. So 0.02 kWh is equivalent to 19 * 14 / 44 = 6g of wax.

So, I hope that those of you who turned off a CFL bulb for an hour, and used candles instead, are confident you used less than a quarter of an ounce of candle wax, in place of that bulb. Otherwise you would have contributed to global warming, rather than help solving it.

[kryckis]

29. Isn't this,,,

thing very counter-productive though? The whole deal with turning the power back on ought to take more electricity than just not turning it off in the first place I would imagine (although I'm no electricity person, so if I'm entirely wrong - yay). It would be kind of like Live Earth in that sense, where I guess the generated awareness was supposed to offset the environmental costs of gigantic outdoor concerts which polluted the environment and concentrated thousands of people who ate, farted and littered.


Maybe if we turned the lights off and kept them like that.