8pm local time, March 28, 2009. Switch off all non-essential electrical items for one hour.
It's not difficult.
Earth hour began in 2007 as a consciousness-raising exercise in Sydney, Australia. It was organised by WWF, the environmental group. In 2008 they took it international. 2009 aims to be the biggest ever world-wide switch-off.
On March 31, 2007, 2.2 million residents of Sydney responded to the call. Their actions, combined with a couple of thousand businesses, helped cut electricity consumption in Sydney by 10.2 percent for that hour.
Advertising billboards went dark. The famous Opera House switched off its floodlights. The Harbour Bridge disappeared into the twilight.
The 2008 project was even more successful, with all Australian cities and many more around the world participating. The organisers said "More than 370 {Australian} cities, towns and communities took part." Independent research indicated that 63 percent of adults in Adelaide actively took part by switching off one or more appliances. It has to be said that this research took place on-line and was largely self-selecting audience.
Most participants switched off lights and household appliances. About a third took one or more of the many charging units for mobile devices out of its wall socket.
Around the world, offices and business districts went dark. Phoenix, Arizona; San Francisco, Detroit and other international cities responded to the call.
Even Google.com turned its front page to black to signify 'lights out'
If you want to know more and participate, there are websites, YouTube channels, and accounts on MySpace, Flickr and Facebook.
While the Earth Hour might help raise some consciousness, the point of the project is to make the hour last a lifetime.
Instead of getting up at the end of the Earth Hour and flipping the 'on' switch to all those unnecessary appliances, the aim is to leave them switched off, and to make sure they remain off, unless they are needed.
If Sydney can cut its energy consumption by 10 percent just by turning off unnecessary appliances, then together, as citizens; as concerned residents of planet Earth, we could cut our overall energy needs by the same amount. And that means we would need fewer power stations; less coal; less oil.
It's not difficult.
8pm local time, March 28, 2009. Switch off all non-essential electrical items. Leave them off.
I killed the lights; switched off the server, pulled the plug on four items that normally sit on standby. The standby items will remain off for the forseeable. The server will remain off overnight, until the kids need to use their computers. The lights went back on at 9pm.
I tried logging into the earthhour.org site. It was unavailable. Either someone pulled the plug, or this idea took off big time. I kind of think it was the latter.
Cities throughout Australia, Asia, Middle East and Europe switched off for an hour or more. Sydney, Brisbane, Bangkok, Manila all switched off for an hour. The same in Aarhus, Copenhagen, Dublin and London.
Overall, it seems, the event caught the Zeitgeist, with up to 30 million people around the world participating.
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