On Saturday, March 29, 2008, at 8 pm in each time zone cities around the world will go dark: Sydney will follow Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra; In the Philippines, in Manila the lights will go out; Bangkok in Thailand; Tel Aviv in Israel; Suva in Fiji; Copenhagen in Denmark; In North America, Atlanta followed by Chicago, Toronto, Phoenix and San Francisco will be black. It’s
Earth Hour. This year’s global initiative was announced at the Bali Climate Convention with twelve flagship cities participating and many more joining.
In the
U.S. Earth Hour this year is lead by
Chicago joined by
ComEd and the
Chicago Chamber of Commerce. Earth Hour aims to reduce carbon emissions for an hour to the equivalent of taking 480,000 cars off the road and heighten awareness of climate change and energy consumption.
Last year on March 31st about 2.2 million people participated in Sydney, Australia. While there is criticism as to how much this actually helped to
cut energy consumption (PDF file), the difference was certainly
visually striking. (More photos
here and odder ones
here)