Wouldn’t it be neat if for just one hour this year, a whole lot of people turned off their lights to show their support for action on climate change? Sound ideal? As fate would have it, Saturday night is your night to shut it down.
For the past couple of years, all over the planet, people have been observing Earth Hour. And it’s only growing in scale for 2009. Check out this video below:
I mean look at that — you can see it from outer space! What started as one country’s initiative to make a statement has become an unprecedented global call to action — without saying a word.
Earth Hour started in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses agreed to shut off their lights for an hour. The Earth Hour tradition rapidly expanded last year, with monuments like the Colosseum in Rome and the big Coca Cola screen in NYC’s Times Square shutting off. Even the iconic Golden Gate Bridge went dark last year.
This year, Earth Hour is happening this Sat., March 29, at 8:30 p.m. So far, 64 countries are participating. Sign up here to make sure your participation is counted. Then sit back, light a candle, follow celebrity suit, and shut it down for 60 measly minutes.
If you want to get more involved, you can learn how to run your own Earth Hour campaign, tell your story, and download T-shirt logos and more on the Earth Hour website.
As if making a statement about climate change wasn’t reason enough to go dark for just an hour a year, read this recent National Geographic feature about light pollution. As a species, we humans need a little darkness in our lives. It’s a good thing.
