Posted on 03/30/2008 6:03:57 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Sydney Opera House to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge went dark as people switched off lights in their homes and skylines dimmed around the world on Saturday to show concern with global warming.
Up to 30 million people were expected to have turned off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" -- which started in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- completed its cycle westward.
More than 380 towns and cities and 3,500 businesses in 35 countries signed up for the campaign that is in its second year after it began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia's largest city.
"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.
Lights at Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge were lowered as Australians held candle-lit beach parties, played poker by candlelight and floated candles down rivers.
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 candle light and reported brisk business.
In Copenhagen, the Tivoli Gardens and the Royal Palace and the opera darkened for an hour, along with many street lights.
"In the central square a lot of people were standing looking at the stars," said Ida Thuesen, spokeswoman for WWF Denmark. "It's not often you can see the stars in a city."
GOOGLE GOES DARK
In a tip of its virtual hat to the event, the background of Google's home page turned to black from white on more than a dozen country sites including Google.com. A message on the site read: "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn." and directed visitors to conserve energy when using computers.
Floodlights went out at landmarks in Budapest, including its castle, cathedral and parliament.
In Britain, 26 town and city councils signed up to switch off nonessential lights as did several historic buildings, including Prince Charles' private residence Highgrove House, London City Hall, Winchester Cathedral and the Government Communication Headquarters radio monitoring station. The south coast town of Brighton turned off the lights on its pier.
The movement crossed the Atlantic to the United States and Canada, where the 1,815-foot (553-metre) CN Tower in Toronto and the surrounding skyline were plunged into temporary darkness.
In Toronto, many restaurants offered candlelight dining. The golden arches at a corner McDonalds were dark, though the restaurant itself was brightly lit. Supporters held "dark parties," glow-in-the-dark soccer games and lantern walks.
News helicopters swooped low over city streets, where banks had switched off the neon signs atop their skyscrapers.
Landmarks such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and Chicago's Sears Tower went dark in the closing hours of Saturday's round-the-world event.
"It is not just about turning off the lights, it is about raising awareness," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said. "Energy efficiency is low-hanging fruit. Energy efficiency is the easiest thing we can do" to reduce global warming.
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. They said they plan a similar event March 28, 2009.
I turned on every light in my house for one hour.
We thought we could melt some of those snow piles that are hanging around.
Which will have no real effects on anything except maybe to make me a little frickin' warmer. It's late March and still cold.
I missed it! Guess I’ll have to buy some cans of hair spray and let it out sometime this afternoon.
Lights dimmed around the world? No one in my town turned off their lights, or in my county as far as I know.I am about 75 miles in a straight line(about 3 hours driving on the freeways)from SF, thank God, and it is another world here in the foothills. The way they write these articles(biased)you would think every light in every country went off.
Seems winter is almost over. Haven’t had a snow fall here in almost 24 hours.
I turn off my lights for at least 14 hours every day, while I'm at work & while I'm sleeping.
How do I get paid for my carbon offsets?
Now I will have to leave them on. Whatever the kooks do, do the opposite and you'll be in the right.
My expression was Take back the night!
We had snow last night here in Seattle. Damn that global warming!!!!
I loved the fireworks they had down in Sydney. Turn off your lights for glowbull warmening, but fill the sky with tons of sulpherous smoke. Typical dimwit libs.
Somehow my lights burned a lot brighter from 8-9 EDT.
Ditto! If this video doesn't convince you that civilization as we know it is not long for this world, nothing will:
God help us.
“Seems winter is almost over. Haven’t had a snow fall here in almost 24 hours.”
Where we live we only have three seasons. Winter, Winter’s almost gone and Winter’s almost here. ;>)
I didn’t turn on any extra lights but I made a point of starting up my 2 stroke dirt bike and riding it around for an hour. The clouds of blue smoke gave me an almost religious experience. Next on the agenda is to get an old 2 stroke street bike, mix the gas/oil at 20:1 and ride it back and forth in front of the Sierra Club office downtown.
Oh, like that's going to help the environment.
30 million out of 6 billion, 800 million. That is about a .0004 % "turnout". But then how many of the remaining 6 billion, 770 million live in the dark anyway?
“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. They said they plan a similar event March 28, 2009.”
Yeah, wow, 30 million people worldwide, out of 6 billion. These 30 million have been identified as the whackos of the world, the Gorebals of the world. Only 30 million believe this BS....that’s a good sign...the rest of us have the common sense to know better. I left all my lights on, and PROUDLY so!!! Screw these whackos.
Loy loy katong.
What a crock of Bull Hockey! Buying into that global warming scam is what idiots do.
“I missed it!”
I missed it also, can they do it again tonight. lol
I left a bunch of my lights on (for security) while I took my daughter out to a Supercross race (dirtbikes). The heady fumes of race gas and two-stroke oil smelled like...victory. It was an outdoor race, and the whole place was lit with huge banks of arc lights.
Come to think of it--scarey to think of 30 mil moonbats, even worldwide.
These gorons are MORONS.
vaudine
Hypocrisy at its best right there. For 8,759 hours in the year, they want us to pi$$ large quantities of electricity away while "googling" stuff on their site. Then for one hour, we're supposed to be good energy savers? What Garbage!
It is like Spitzer talking about the evil prostitution ring he busted while AG. Sorry Google....you guys are hypocrites.
There was a song anticipating the end of WWII that went something like this: "When the lights go on again, all over the world..."
If the ecofascists get their way, the world will once again be engulfed in darkness, which is what they want.
I completely ignored it. As a matter of fact, I turned on every light in my garage too, along with the stereo and air compressor.
And, dad gummit, I felt really good about that!
That's how the leftists want us all to live.
Look for increased births in December in these darkened countries....
My wife and I went to a hockey game in honor of global warming. What we better be worried about is the next ice age. Ther is a lot more cold in the universe than heat.
At least 3 years ago I suggested the easiest way to cut energy consumption was to eliminate 1/2 the street lights in the country and posters on another site scoffed like lemmings suggesting crime might increase by .05%. 20% of US energy consumption is now attributed to computers—how bout shutting them down. Let google lead the charge.
My house was the one with all the lights on, the washer and dryer going, the computer on, and the TV on. I forgot the porch light.
That is what happened in New York some time back when they had a blackout.
Me too, and I set up 6 1KW Work lights outside in the yard.
My yard was lit up like a football stadium
... and that sucking sound you heard an hour later was noise of them pulling their collective heads out of the sand ...
Earth Hour Smurf Hour.
My lights were on, 3 TVs going, 3 Computers working, an electric fridge running, washing machine, electgric clothes dryer running, and nuked some popcorn, all during “Earth Hour.”
Earth Hour Smurf Hour.
30 million people is about 0.46% of the earths population.
Our stable lights and heated water buckets were all on last night. Al Gore can go stuff himself. Wait a minute. He already did.
I don’t know if anybody on this street turned their lights on or off since it was still light at that time.
Saw news this am, Chicago saved approx 5% last night. You think they will lower taxes/s
I saw your homepage, that’s some good work solider.
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