Posted on 03/29/2008 3:46:45 PM PDT by Jean S
SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - People switched off lights across the world on Saturday, dimming buildings, hotels, restaurants and bars to show concern at global warming.
Up to 30 million people were expected to switch off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" -- which started at 8 p.m. in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- completed its cycle westwards.
More than 380 towns and cities and 3,500 businesses in 35 countries signed up for the campaign that is only in its second year after it began in 2007 in Sydney alone.
"Earth Hour shows that everyday people are prepared to pull together to find a solution to climate change. It can be done," said James Leape of WWF International which was running the campaign.
"But we need to harness some of the cooperative spirit we've seen with Earth Hour to find a global solution."
Lights at Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge were switched off and Australians held candle-lit beach parties, played poker by candle light, floated candles down rivers and dined by candle light.
In Bangkok some of the city's business districts, shopping malls and billboards went dark, although street lights stayed on. One major hotel invited guests to dine by candlelight and reported brisk business.
In Copenhagen the famed Tivoli Gardens said it would also switch off along with the City Hall.
In Britain some 26 town and city councils signed up to switch off non-essential lights as did several historic buildings including Prince Charles' private residence Highgrove House, London City Hall, Winchester Cathedral and even the Government Communication Headquarters radio monitoring station.
GOOGLE JOINS IN
And in the age of the Internet, the UK arm of search engine Google too turned its home page black ahead of time with the message: "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn."
Floodlights were also to go out at landmarks in Budapest, including its castle, cathedral and parliament, and about 100 statues and museums.
The movement was then to jump the Atlantic to the United States and Canada where several cities including Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta and Toronto signed up.
San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Chicago's Sears Tower and Soldier Field Stadium football ground, as well as the 553-metre (1,815 ft) CN Tower in Toronto were due to be plunged into darkness. Even the lights at Niagara Falls were to go out.
Buildings account for about one-third of the carbon emissions that scientists say will boost global average temperatures by between 1.4 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century bringing floods and famines and putting millions of lives at risk.
Organizers of Earth Hour said that while switching off a light for one hour would have little impact on carbon emissions, the fact that so many people were taking part showed how much interest and concern at the climate crisis had taken hold.
"This was only supposed to be in Australia again this year but we got bombarded with messages of interest to spread it far wider," said WWF's Jo Sargent. "Next year it will be even bigger."
(Additional reporting by James Thornhill in Sydney, Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo and Ploy Chitsomboon in Bangkok; Editing by Myra MacDonald)
Reuters never does free advertising. So who’s paying for this?
Must have missed it.
Maybe next year.
46 deg outside right now.
In order to celebrate global warming I do here promise to leave all my outside lights on, all my computers, all my TV’s on tomorrow 3/30/08!
I will definitely celebrate by turning on every light I own. :-p
Typical liberal feel-good nonsense that accomplishes nothing.
To counter their actions, I ran three air conditioners for 6 hours, changed all my light bulbs to 100 watt, and burned a tire in the backyard.
while I think the whole idea of this for global warming is BS, this would not be a bad idea to do every once and a while in this country only to reduce oil/energy consumption and stick it to the camel jockey’s...
All this recent Enviro-Hype can have only one purpose:
Reintroduce Al Gore to the public eye as a presidential candidate.
And in other news ...
Environmentalists world wide also took several tiny little steps backwards in order to avoid getting too close to the edge of the planet and falling off.
Dim Bulb Express..
I’m going to celebrate earth hour by driving my truck for now reason.
So, these morons would have us believe that the people of the World would be better off without electrical power? What utter nonsense.
Isn’t this tonight, Eastern time, 9pm? I’ll be going to my bff’s house but I will be leaving every single one of my lights on....as usual. I DO NOT like the dark!
I'll have to turn on every "incandescent" light I have in the house at 8 PM CT to show unity for the cause. ; )
I’m getting my Christmas lights down from the attic, JUST FOR THAT HOUR!!!
Baby, it’s gonna be bright tonight!!!
My husband suggested that we start up both of our trucks and leave them running for an hour.
We could be just like the PRNK then.
The dynachrome mansion will be ablaze at 8pm MDT!
Not in my house.
So am I and I will be tying up the kids under the motion detectors.
I'm still laughing at that!
We actually turned on all the lights in our house.
Below is a night satellite image of North and South Korea.
I’m even gonna turn my flashlight on......take that, Owl Gore!
I’m even gonna turn my flashlight on......take that, Owl Gore!
Sooo—Does this also include street lighting and signals? Could create chaos...
Mark of the beast.
(interesting note, the bwitch is also referred to as, The Beast ... hmmmmm )
I’m not 100% sure about this but on my laptop (I guess any LCD display), there’s a white backlight that’s always on. There’s a liquid crystal film layer on top which filters RGB cells by passing a current through the LCD. The current turns that portion of the LCD from transparent to opaque. To get red, you run current through the green and blue portions of each pixel. To get black, you run current through all three portions (red, green, and blue).
In other words, my laptop consumes MORE power by having a black Google screen than the normal white Google screen.
I just watched the NBC Nightly News where the correspondent in Atlanta recommended that when you turn out your lights, maybe you can light some candles. He lit four of em. I guess he doesn’t understand that a burning candle emits green house gases. We are getting wackier every day.
Are we ready to burn some electrons in inverse support of this? It is T-minus 53 for the Eastern Time Zone, “T” for Turn On the Lights, that is. Suggest a running mod to the title in breaking so we can join in the fun. ThankYouVeryMuch /Elvis
“We actually turned on all the lights in our house.”
It starts at 8 CST.
Ooooooh, I hate this empty symbolism BS.
Let’s plunge the world back to pre-historic DARKNESS, yeah, that’s the future I want!
&&#^#(@^&#!!!
I’m dragging out my Christmas lights and putting them on my bushes outside, plus every blasted light in my house will be on!
I have an idea....all these people who want complete, energy saving, darkness tonite can blind themselves!! All the dark you want then- liberal,tree-hugging,back to the cave mental patients...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
OOOH a while hour to explore the self-loathing, guilt-ridden liberal existence!
Maybe we should complete the third-world experience by eating dirt and burning garbage. Maybe even sell our youngest children into sex slavery - the complete 10,000 BC savage experience.
A Light Wave...YES!!
Fight global warming-—MAKE ICE!!!
You nonconformist, you. LOL!
I’ll have my lights burning!
That’s nothing, I turned my A/C so low I had to turn my heat on. The heater wasn’t quick enough so I lit a fire in the fireplace...... oh dear ...... I think I over did the heat, now I need my A/C.
I love The People’s Cube. Funny site!
Is there time for me to put my Christmas lights back up?
I just layed down and checked the insides of my eyelids for cracks for about an hour. Does that count? I sure feel better.
>>In other words, my laptop consumes MORE power by having a black Google screen than the normal white Google screen.<<
Holy Crap! Wouldn’t that just be a Kick Ass question for Yahoo Answers?
“Does the Black screen of Google for “Earth Hour” actually use more energy?”
Bet Yahoo people would be laughing their competative butts off!!!!!
That’s not where your crack is silly.
Fascinating, thank you. Those North Koreans must still live by lamplight. Or no light.
I have heard that pilots call the east coast BosNyWash because there’s no darkness from Boston to Washington at night.
Quix, ping to post #26.
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