Lights out in 84 countries for Earth Hour 2009

Caryn Rousseau, Associated Press Yahoo News 27 Mar 09;

CHICAGO – The lights are going down from the Great Pyramids to the Acropolis, the Eiffel Tower to Sears Tower, as more than 2,800 municipalities in 84 countries plan Saturday to mark the second worldwide Earth Hour.

McDonald's will even soften the yellow glow from some Golden Arches as part of the time zone-by-time zone plan to dim nonessential lights between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. to highlight global climate change.

"Earth Hour makes a powerful statement that the world is going to solve this problem," said Carter Roberts, chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund, which sponsors Earth Hour. "Everyone is realizing the enormous effect that climate change will have on them."

Seven times more municipalities have signed on since last year's Earth Hour, which drew participation from 400 cities after Sydney, Australia held a solo event in 2007. Interest has spiked ahead of planned negotiations on a new global warming treaty in Copenhagen, Denmark this December. The last global accord, the Kyoto Protocol, is set to expire in 2012.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged the convention to reach a fair and effective climate change agreement and promoted Earth Hour participation in a video posted this month on the event's YouTube channel.

"Earth Hour is a way for the citizens of the world to send a clear message," Ban said. "They want action on climate change."

Other videos have been posted by celebrities such as rocker Pete Wentz and actor Kevin Bacon and WWF has offered Earth Hour iPhone applications. Search engine Yahoo! says there's been a 344 percent increase in "Earth Hour" searches this February and March compared with last year.

New studies increasingly highlight the ongoing effects of climate change, said Richard Moss, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and WWF's climate change vice president.

"We have satellites and we have ships out at sea and we have monitoring stations set up on buoys in the ocean," Moss said. "We monitor all kinds of things people wouldn't even think about. The scientific research is showing in all kinds of ways that the climate crisis is worsening."

But not everyone agrees and at least one counter-protest is planned for Saturday.

Suburban Philadelphia ice cream shop owner Bob Gerenser, 56, believes global warming is based on faulty science and calls Earth Hour "nonsense."

The resident of New Hope, Pa., and owner of Gerenser's Exotic Ice Cream planned to illuminate his store with extra theatrical lighting.

"I'm going to get everyone I know in my neighborhood to turn on every light they possibly can to waste as much electricity as possible to underline the absurdity of this action ... by being absurd," he said.

Earth Hour 2009 has garnered support from global corporations, nonprofit groups, schools, scientists and celebrities — including Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

McDonald's Corp. plans to dim its arches at 500 locations around the Midwest. The Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont hotel chains and Coca-Cola Co. also plan to participate.

Nearly 200 U.S. cities, towns and villages have signed on, from New York City — which will darken the iconic Empire State Building and Broadway marquees — to Igiugig, population 53 on Iliamna Lake in southwestern Alaska.

Among the efforts in Chicago, 50,000 light bulbs at tourist hotspot Navy Pier will dim and 24 spotlights that shine on Sears Tower's twin spires will go dark.

"We're the most visible building in the city," said Angela Burnett, a Sears Tower property manager. "Turning off the lights for one hour on a Saturday night shows our commitment to sustainability."

The Commonwealth Edison utility said electricity demand fell by 5 percent in Chicago and northern Illinois during last year's Earth Hour, reducing about 840,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.

"It goes way beyond turning off the lights," said Roberts of the WWF. "The message we want people to take away is that it is within our power to solve this problem. People can take positive constructive actions."

Millions to flick the switch for climate change
Amy Coopes Yahoo News 26 Mar 09;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Millions of people across the globe will kill their lights for one hour this Saturday, in what organisers hope will be a resounding call for tough action on climate change.

The waters of Sydney Harbour will be plunged into darkness for an hour from 8:30 pm (0930 GMT) as the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge dim their lights.

The pyramids of Giza, Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Acropolis and Beijing's "Birds Nest" Olympic stadium are among other major landmarks across 84 countries to celebrate Earth Hour.

In Hong Kong, famed for its glittering waterfront, more than 1,500 buildings will dim their lights, including many of the city's iconic skyscrapers such as the Bank of China Tower, HSBC's headquarters and the giant International Finance Centre 2.

The city will also suspend its daily light show for the first time on Saturday, organisers said.

From its beginnings in Sydney two years ago, when 2.2 million people switched off their lights, the event has exploded to this year include 2,848 cities, villages and towns, said director Andy Ridley.

"We always had our eye to 2009 because of the Copenhagen (emissions targets) negotiations at the end of the year," Ridley told AFP.

A UN-led conference in the Danish capital in December is meant to approve a new global warming treaty for the period after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's obligations to cut carbon emissions expire.

"We hope that it will be difficult for leaders to look at the scale of involvement and engagement in a broad spectrum of countries without saying 'OK, there's a mandate there,'" Ridley said.

"We have eight months to get to Copenhagen and we sort of see this as a referendum on the issue."

Earth Hour was born out of frustration at Australia's then-conservative "climate sceptic" government, and Ridley said organisers were overwhelmed by the response in 2007, when almost half of Sydney's population observed an hour of darkness.

Crucially, Ridley said countries leading the initiative in 2009 were emerging, high-emissions economies such as Brazil, India and China.

"I remember when we first started this people were saying 'there is no chance you will be able to get China to engage in Earth Hour,'" he said.

"But for some reason there's, I think, a general sense that climate change is such a massive problem that it's one of those issues that has to be dealt with globally."

Critics said the initiative was little more than empty symbolism, with one Danish professor claiming the use of candles during the hour could actually produce more emissions than electric lights.

"Even if a billion people turn off their lights this Saturday the entire event will be equivalent to switching off China's emissions for six short seconds," said Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre think-tank.

"Moreover, candles produce indoor air pollution 10 to 100 times the level of pollution caused by all cars, industry and electricity production. If you use one candle for each extinguished globe you're essentially not cutting CO2 at all, and with two candles you'll emit more CO2," Lomborg wrote in The Australian newspaper.

Ridley agreed the amount of energy saved from powering down for an hour was negligible but said it was a symbolic, awareness-raising act.

"In effect, the leaders of the world have to step over the line together," he said.

"There will be different lines for different countries but we have to step over the line together and we have to set targets that will help us achieve very, very significant emissions cuts," Ridley added.

"We hope that Earth Hour will be part of providing a mandate for those leaders who will be in Copenhagen in December to do that."

Chatham Island, the largest of a tiny group of Pacific islands 800 kilometres (500 miles) southeast of New Zealand, will officially begin Earth Hour by switching off its diesel generators at 0645 GMT, or 8:30 pm local time.

Millions are set to mark the day with events such as acoustic concerts and candlelit dinners, with church bells set to ring in Sweden and casinos to black out along the garish Las Vegas strip.