One evening at the end of March, 2007, 2.2 million people and 2,100 businesses in Sydney, Australia turned off their lights for one hour. It was called Earth Hour and it reduced the city’s energy consumption by 10.2 percent for one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for one hour. (See article in Natural Life, March/April, 2007.)

Created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour used the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming. With Sydney icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House turning their lights off and unique events such as weddings by candlelight, the world took notice.

Inspired by this collective effort, many other major global cities are turning a symbolic event into a global movement. So at 8pm on the March, 29, 2008 millions of people in some of the world’s major cities, including Copenhagen, Toronto, Chicago, Melbourne, Tel Aviv, Manila and Sydney will create a brief wave of darkness spreading around the world by switching off their lights and electrical appliances for the first international Earth Hour.

The global initiative has been organized by World Wildlife Fund International. Director General Jim Leape says, “The public has become increasingly alarmed about climate change. They’re seeing it in their daily lives, faster than worse than scientists predicted even a few years ago, and are increasingly impatient to see something done about it. People are ready to take action in their own lives and expecting their governments to take action.”

Toronto’s mayor David Miller signed on early. He says, “Every person, every business and every government has a shared duty to fight climate change. Where national governments fail to lead, cities can and must lead.”

What a wonderful idea! I don't know if the Twin Cities is doing this, but I will do it even if the Cities do not. Thanks for posting this.

Huggzzz!

Great idea - how do we get our governments to sign on to this and what time zone is the 8pm time so we can work out. Or is it 8 pm in ones own time zone?

The whole of South Africa and neighboring countries are at the moment having load shedding because of the current electricity crisis in this part of the world. It has had a huge umpact on business and the economy. There is just not electricity to supply everybody as the growth rate of the economy has evertaken the ability for our power stations to cope. Load shedding shuts down one entire area for a number of hours. My husbands business area was without electricity for a whole day recently - that means no computers working in any of the businesses in the that part of town. Everyone who did not have a backup generator just ground to a halt.

The situation here in Botswana seems to have stabalised over the last week, but there are continued problems in South Africa. There are constant messages on TV about electricity usage and asking people to turn off essential appliances. Traffic gets gridlocked because of traffic light that are out, small businesses are not coping with the loss of business that results from the load shedding.

It seems ridiculous that in an area of the world with so much sunshine, solar power has not been utilised more widely or been made available more cheaply to the masses who are mostly living without the luxury of electricity anyway. Solar power should be on every governments highest agenda in the areas of the world that have so much free sunshine available - we are currently investigating a solar powered stove to do our cooking on in our house.

I envisage that in the upcoming months and years there will be more vigorous campaigning by those who elect their leaders to attend to attend to these urgent matters. The time is NOW for each of us to use energy wisely and take this situation seriously.

Wendy

There are a myriad sources of alternative energy, sun, wind, wave. I just read yesterday in ODE magazine of "crowd power." Crowd power harnesses the energy of foot traffic in places like sidewalks and dance clubs. Energy is everywhere. There seems to be more of a push to utilize it. I'm happy to wave my arms to say that we're running out of oil. There are so many other choices. I think we're starting to seriously consider them now. The oil companies need to turn into energy companies. It's happening.

"Coincidentally" there was a wonderful programme on CNN called Ecosolutions which dealt with solar power and other solutions for the energy crisis all round the world. Other countries are streaks ahead of us in providing some credible solutions for todays world.

www.cnn.ecosolutions.com - hope thats right.

Love
wendy

May I suggest everyone, where possible, replace incandescent bulbs with the new compact flourescents or LED bulbs and upgrade refrigerators and air conditioners to more energy efficient models? These are the biggest energy hogs in most households and will save the most energy.

Just a word of warning about the compact fluorescent bulbs if you have migranes, lupus or seizures - these bubs can make them worse:

http://www.consumersavvytips.org/theres_something_you_n...ysaving_compact.html
There are more warnings, just google it.
Christina