Lights OUT for EARTH HOUR

• WHAT: EARTH HOUR: Switch Lights OFF for 1 hour
  
• WHEN: Saturday, March 28th at 8:30pm - 9:30pm
  
• WHERE: Planet Earth
• WHY: International concern about energy and climate change
  

Electricity is generated mainly by burning fossil fuels, emitting heat-trapping gases that cause global warming and climate change. Needed is a transition from burning fossil fuels to clean, renewable power sources, and a focus on energy efficiency. World Wildlife Fund is asking individuals, businesses, governments and organizations around the World to turn off their electric lights for one hour – Earth Hour – to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate commitment to finding solutions.

Up to 1 Billion people are expected to participate in Earth Hour this year. In 2008, 50 million people in 370 cities and towns across the World turned their lights OFF. Lights went off at places around the globe including the Chicago skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Acropolis, and the Roman Colosseum. Below are some photos taken at Earth Hour in 2008.

Locally, the Buffalo Zoo, students at Daemen College and the University at Buffalo, and others are encouraging people to join this global effort in support of encouraging world leaders to take action on climate change.

The Electric Tower in Buffalo will go dark at 8:30pm, and at 9:30pm, the white tower will be bathed in green light to show solidarity with the green movement.
The Buffalo Common Council passed a resolution designating Saturday as “World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour Day”. “Extinguishing non-essential lights in all city government buildings, public schools and public landmarks for one hour, and urging all businesses and citizens to do the same will send a clear message that the people of Buffalo are concerned about climate change,” the resolution said. Read the story at The Buffalo News.

The lights at nearby Niagara Falls will go off, as will those at New York City's Broadway theater signs, Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building. Lights Worldwide will go DARK for Earth Hour.

Join in the effort and turn your Lights OFF at 8:30pm on Saturday. Take a walk outside and look up at the night sky -- you'll see more stars when city lights are off. At home, light a Candle for the Climate.

A Video about Earth Hour is here, and the website is here.

UPDATE: Saturday Morning, March 28 --It's Earth Hour on the other side of the Planet
The Chatham Islands, a group of small islands around 500 miles east of New Zealand, officially kicked off Earth Hour by switching off its diesel generators. Soon after, the lights of Auckland's Sky Tower, the tallest man-made structure in New Zealand, blinked off. At Scott Base in Antarctica, New Zealand's 26-member winter team resorted to minimum safety lighting and switched off appliances and computers. In Australia, where Earth Hour was founded in 2007, Sydney's glittering harbor was bathed in shadows as lights dimmed on the steel arch of the city's iconic Harbour Bridge and the nearby Opera House. Read the full story here.

Video of EARTH HOUR on the other side of the Planet!