This weekend, cities, businesses, and individuals around the world switched off or dimmed their lights for an hour to raise awareness about climate change. The event, called "Earth Hour," started in Sydney, Australia, last year; organizers say that this year it spread to about 380 cities and towns in 35 countries, temporarily extinguishing non-essential lights and darkening landmarks around the world, including the Sydney Opera House and the Golden Gate Bridge. Internet search engine Google even switched its homepage background from white to black to mark the event. Aside from awareness-raising, the event did save a modest amount of energy in some areas. But that wasn't necessarily the point. "The main point is not to make a significant dent in climate change, but to demonstrate the need for people to take leadership on their own to address this problem," said Richard Moss of the World Wildlife Fund.
source: Reuters, Agence France-Presse, BBC News, The Washington Post
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:16 am
31 Mar 2008
Although I rebelliously blazed all my apartment lights on Saturday at 8pm, I do like the idea of turning things off.
Originally my mantra was that anything which is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is guaranteed a page in the Book of Cool.
Now, maybe the solution to our problems is to go back to Blue Laws on Sunday. I mean, how about if we all call a Social Detente and agree to give each other a rest? Let's close as much stuff as possible on Sunday and stay home, have big dinners, watch a little tv, play ball at the park, sleep and then go at it on Mondays.
We could save 1/7th off all the energy being expended in big retail outlets, in driving to big retail outlets and so on.
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rrecroc Posted 11:05 am
31 Mar 2008
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