World switches off to save planet in "Earth Hour"

Reuters 28 Mar 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Lights went out at tourism landmarks and homes across the globe on Saturday for Earth Hour 2009, a global event designed to highlight the threat from climate change.

From the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and London's Houses of Parliament, lights were dimmed as part of a campaign to encourage people to cut energy use and curb greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

Organizers said the action showed millions of people wanted governments to work out a strong new U.N. deal to fight global warming by the end of 2009, even though the global economic crisis has raised worries about the costs.

"We have been dreaming of a new climate deal for a long time," Kim Carstensen, head of a global climate initiative at the conservation group WWF, said in a candle-lit bar in the German city of Bonn, which hosts U.N. climate talks between March 29 and April 8.

"Now we're no longer so alone with our dream. We're sharing it with all these people switching off their lights," he said as delegates and activists sipped bluish cocktails.

The U.N. Climate Panel says greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet and will lead to more floods, droughts, heatwaves, rising sea levels and animal and plant extinctions.

World emissions have risen by about 70 percent since the 1970s. China has recently overtaken the United States as the top emitter, ahead of the European Union, Russia and India.

BILLION PEOPLE TAKE PART

The U.N. Climate Panel says rich nations will have to cut their emissions to a level between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst effects of warming. Developing nations will also have to slow the rise of their emissions by 2020, it says.

Australia first held Earth Hour in 2007 and it went global in 2008, attracting 50 million people, organizers say. WWF, which started the event, is hoping one billion people from nearly 90 countries will take part.

"The primary reason we do it is because we want people to think, even if it is for an hour, what they can do to lower their carbon footprint, and ideally take that beyond the hour," Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley told reporters at Sydney's Bondi Beach.

In Asia, lights at landmarks in China, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines were dimmed as people celebrated with candle-lit picnics and concerts.

Buildings in Singapore's business district went dark along with major landmarks such as the Singapore Flyer, a giant observation wheel.

Other global landmarks that switched off their lights included the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Reserve Bank in Mumbai, the dome of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, Egypt's Great Pyramids and the Acropolis in Athens.

(Reporting by Reuters bureau; Writing by Jon Boyle)

Antarctica to Pyramids — lights dim for Earth Hour
Rupa Shenoy, Associated Press Yahoo News 29 Mar 09;

CHICAGO – From an Antarctic research base and the Great Pyramids of Egypt to the Empire State Building in New York and the Sears Tower in Chicago, illuminated patches of the globe went dark Saturday for Earth Hour, a campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.

Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries joined the event sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund to dim nonessential lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The campaign began in Australia in 2007 and last year grew to 400 cities worldwide.

Organizers initially worried enthusiasm this year would wane with the world focused on the global economic crisis, said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. But he said it apparently had the opposite effect.

"Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign; it's always around street parties, not street protests, it's the idea of hope, not despair. And I think that's something that's been incredibly important this year because there is so much despair around," he said.

Crowds in Times Square watched as many of the massive billboards, including the giant Coca-Cola display, darkened. Steps away, the Majestic Theater marquee at the home of "The Phantom of the Opera" went dark, along with the marquees at other Broadway shows.

Mikel Rouse, 52, a composer who lives and works nearby came to watch what he called "the center of the universe" dim its lights.

"C'mon, is it really necessary? ... All this ridiculous advertising ... all this corporate advertising taking up all that energy seems to be a waste," Rouse said.

In Chicago, one of 10 U.S. Earth Hour flagship cities, a small crowd braved a cold rain to count down as Gov. Pat Quinn flipped a 4-foot-tall mock light switch that organizers had to brace against high winds. A second later, the buildings behind him went dark.

"I don't see why people shouldn't always turn off the lights," pondered 15-year-old Chicagoan Tyler Oria, who was among those gathered.

More than 200 buildings pledged to go dark in the city, including shops along the Magnificent Mile.

"No matter what your individual beliefs are about climate change, energy efficiency is something everyone can understand in this economic environment," said WWF managing director Darron Collins, who helped Chicago officials organize for the night.

The Smithsonian Castle, World Bank, National Cathedral and Howard University were among several buildings that went dark for an hour in the nation's capital.

"This was the first year that Washington, D.C., became an official Earth Hour city," said Leslie Aun, WWF spokeswoman.

In the Chilean capital of Santiago, lights were turned off at banks, the city's communications tower and several government buildings, including the Presidential Palace where President Michelle Bachelet hosted a dinner for U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

The two leaders and dozens of guests dinned at candlelight.

In Mexico City, the city government and business owners turned off all "nonessential" lights at more than 100 buildings, including 31 city buildings and monuments and 17 hotels.

In San Francisco, lights on landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge were set to be turned off, along with the city's well-known Ghirardelli Square sign. The Las Vegas Strip turned down its glitz by extinguishing pockets of neon outside casinos while some witnesses alerted their friends on Twitter.

U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon called Earth Hour "a way for the citizens of the world to send a clear message: They want action on climate change."

An agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, is supposed to be reached in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December, and environmentalists' sense of urgency has spurred interest in this year's Earth Hour.

In Bonn, WWF activists held a candlelit cocktail party on the eve of a U.N. climate change meeting, the first in a series of talks leading up to Copenhagen. The goal is to get an ambitions deal to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that scientists say are dangerously warming the planet.

"People want politicians to take action and solve the problem," said Kim Carstensen, director of the global climate initiative for WWF, speaking in a piano bar bathed by candlelight and lounge music.

China participated for the first time, cutting the lights at Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium and Water Cube, the most prominent 2008 Olympic venues. In Bangkok, the prime minister switched off the lights on Khao San Road, a haven for budget travelers packed with bars and outdoor cafes.

In Rio de Janeiro, the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue that watches over the city of 6 million was darkened, along with the beachfront of the famed Copacabana and a few other local sites.

Earth Hour organizers say there's no uniform way to measure how much energy is saved worldwide.

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

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

In the Chicago suburb of Blue Island, Eli Rodriguez, 41, owner of a Mexican restaurant called Tenochtitlan switched off not only the lights but also the television, which was playing a NCAA tournament basketball game.

"Everybody was happy I did it," Rodriguez said. "They support this. They understood."

But after a few seconds, he turned the game back on and kept the lights dim.

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Associated Press writers around the world contributed to this report.

Landmarks go dark for world climate campaign
Yahoo News 28 Mar 09;

NEW YORK (AFP) – From Sydney Harbour to the Empire State Building, cities and world landmarks plunged into darkness as a symbolic energy-saving exercise unfolded across the globe.

The pyramids at Giza in Egypt, the Acropolis in Athens and the Houses of Parliament in London cut their electricity as part of "Earth Hour," a worldwide call for action to avert potentially devastating climate change.

Some 371 landmarks were due to power down worldwide, including the Eiffel Tower, Niagara Falls, the Las Vegas casino strip and Beijing's "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium.

The switch-off was due to end in Honolulu, capital of the US state of Hawaii.

The global event began dramatically as Sydney's iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge plunged into darkness on Saturday night, killing their lights for an hour, followed later by the glittering Hong Kong waterfront.

Millions of people turned out in Sydney, while Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, came to life with a pedal-powered concert and others enjoyed moonlit picnics and barbecues.

The global grassroots movement began in Sydney two years ago, when 2.2 million people switched off their lights. Earth Hour has since grown to include 3,929 cities, villages and localities across the globe.

"It is a very positive, hopeful campaign," Andy Ridley, the event's director, told reporters in Sydney.

"We want people to think, even if it is for an hour, what they can do to lower their carbon footprint and take that beyond the hour."

Ridley said he was aiming for one billion participants, hoping the event would send a resounding message to world leaders about significant emissions cuts.

Scientists have warned that global warming caused by burning fossil fuels on a massive scale could devastate the planet, hitting the poorest countries hardest with floods, droughts and disease.

Sceptics criticized the event as little more than empty symbolism, with Danish professor Bjorn Lomborg claiming the use of candles during the hour could produce more emissions than electric lights.

But United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a video message earlier this month that "Earth Hour is a way for the citizens of the world to send a clear message. They want action on climate change."

Lights in the "city that never sleeps" began going dark at 8:30 pm (0030 GMT) at some of New York City's most renowned buildings and landmarks, including Broadway theaters, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the signs of several big firms, including Coca-Cola's in Times Square.

In Washington, campuses of major universities and several embassies flipped the switch. People gathered at Freedom Plaza, which has an unobstructed view of the US Congress, to watch the lights dim on nearby buildings and hotels.

In London, the lights went off at the Houses of Parliament and the famous electronic billboard at Piccadilly Circus.

In Paris, hundreds of monuments and buildings, from the Louvre and Notre Dame Cathedral to the Arc de Triomphe, all went dark. For safety reasons, the lights on the Eiffel Tower were switched off for only five minutes.

Elsewhere across Europe, St Peter's Basilica in Rome and the Greek parliament in Athens were all plunged into darkness, while entertainers danced in front of the Romanian parliament in Bucharest.

In Egypt, the Giza pyramids, the Cairo Tower and the Alexandria Library on the Mediterranean all went dark.

In the United Arab Emirates, which has the highest per capita energy consumption in the world, Dubai's iconic sail-shaped seven-star Burj al-Arab hotel turned off its nightly multi-colored light show.

Mountaineers planned to raise an Earth Hour flag on the 29,000-foot (8,848-meter) summit of Everest, the planet's highest point.

The lights went dark in downtown Manila, as they did in the world's tallest completed skyscraper, the Taipei 101 building.

In South Africa, Table Mountain was to be seen only by starlight for an hour. And the Weekender newspaper reported that one couple would turn the lights down on their marriage at a vineyard near Cape Town.

A United Nations-led conference in the Danish capital later this year is meant to approve a new global warming treaty for after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol for cutting carbon emissions expires.

Cities switch off for Earth Hour
BBC News 28 Mar 09;

Major cities and global landmarks have been plunged into darkness as millions of people switched off lights for an hour to protest against climate change.

The initiative, Earth Hour, was begun in Sydney two years ago by green campaigners keen to cut energy use.

Correspondents say the aim is to create a huge wave of public pressure to influence a meeting in Copenhagen later this year to seek a new climate treaty.

Critics describe the event as a symbolic and meaningless gesture.

The switch-off was planned to take place in more than 3,400 towns and cities across 88 countries, at 2030 in each local time zone.

Earth Hour was launched in 2007 as a solo event in Sydney, Australia, with more than two million people involved. Last year's event claimed the participation of 370 cities.

Organisers said they wanted to demonstrate what people can do to reduce their carbon footprint and save energy, thus drawing attention to the problem of climate change.

China debut

This time Sydney was one of the first places to switch off. The BBC's Nick Bryant described a city where skyscrapers were hard to make out against the night sky.

Hours later, Beijing's most prominent Olympic venues, the Bird's Nest and Water Cube, went dark. China is taking part for the first time, with major cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai and Guangzhou also dimming their lights.

Other locations due to take part this time include Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, St Peter's Basilica in Rome, Paris' Eiffel Tower, the Egyptian Pyramids and New York's Empire State Building.

Fast-food giant McDonald's has pledged to dim its "golden arches" at 500 locations, while celebrities such as actress Cate Blanchett and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have promised support.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon backed the initiative 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," he said. "They want action on climate change."

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