Earth Hour 2008: Spend an Hour in the Dark with a Planet You Love

Tomorrow night it’s lights out for Planet Earth—but in a good way.

In cities and towns all over the world, people and businesses have pledged to turn off their lights for one hour on March 29, 2008, beginning at 8 p.m. local time, to show how reducing energy consumption can help slow global warming and to serve as a worldwide call for action on the greatest threat now facing our planet.

Earth Hour, as the event is being called, was inspired by a similar demonstration in Sydney, Australia last year. On March 31, 2007, more than 2.2 million Sydney residents and more than 2,100 businesses switched off lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour to make a powerful statement about the leading contributor to global warming: coal-fired electricity. That single hour accounted for a 10.2 percent reduction in energy consumption across the city. Global icons such as a Sydney Opera House went dark, weddings were held by candlelight, and the world took notice.

The First Earth Hour: A Call to Action from Down Under
What began in 2007 as one city’s dramatic stand against global warming has become a worldwide movement in 2008. Sponsored by WWF—a conservation group that is aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation by 5 percent annually—Earth Hour 2008 has the official participation of 24 cities, thousands of businesses and untold numbers of individuals worldwide.

Wondering what you can do after the lights go out? WWF suggests several possibilities, such as dinner by candlelight (preferably with Earth-friendly beeswax candles), an Earth Hour block party, or a nighttime picnic with family or friends.

The Purpose of Earth Hour
The goal, of course, is to inspire people to reduce their energy consumption every day, not by sitting in the dark for an hour each night, but by taking simple steps that can have a dramatic effect.

Here are a few examples:

• Switch to energy-efficient CFL or LED lights instead of traditional incandescent bulbs (even Thomas Edison, who invented incandescent bulbs, was a proponent of renewable energy and reducing energy consumption). Lighting accounts for about 5 percent of residential greenhouse gas emissions.

• Turn off or unplug computers, televisions, cell-phone chargers, microwave ovens, and other appliances and electrical devices when they’re not in use instead of leaving them on standby.

• Turn off lights when you leave a room or finish work for the day. Encourage your company to shut off lights and unused appliances when no one is working.

• Get a free home energy audit to help you reduce your energy consumption, and switch to green power if your utility company offers renewable energy options.

• Use less hot water. This will not only save water, it will also reduce the amount of electricity (or natural gas) you use to keep water hot.

Visit the Earth Hour website to learn more and get involved.