Earth Hour

Last night we had a practice run for Earth Hour here in Berkeley, with a power outage that started during the last ten minutes of Grey’s Anatomy and lasted through ten minutes into the nightly news. Too early to go to bed, I did chores by flashlight to keep myself entertained. Just as I was getting ready to call it a night the lights came back on …

Tomorrow night, Saturday, March 28th, from 8:30 until 9:30pm local time, people are encouraged to turn off their lights to cast their vote in the world’s first global election between Earth and global warming.

Earth Hour is about taking simple steps everyday that collectively reduce carbon emissions – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.

Here are 10 different ways to spend Earth Hour and reduce your carbon footprint:

1. Attend a local Earth Hour event or organise your own by throwing an Earth Hour street party with your neighbours
2. Gather family & friends for a night picnic in your local park and look at the stars
3. Enjoy a family dinner by candlelight
4. Organise a treasure hunt in the dark
5. Take the dog for a night walk
6. Have a candle-lit bath
7. Sit in the dark and share stories
8. Organise a family night playing board games
9. Share a romantic night in with your loved one
10. Upload your ‘on the night’ photos and videos to flickr and YouTube respectively, and then add them to the respective Earth Hour flickr group (http://www.flickr.com/groups/earthhour2009global/) and the global YouTube Group (http://www.youtube.com/group/earthhourglobal).

Earth Hour Executive Director, Andy Ridley, is encouraging people to participate in whatever way they choose and to think beyond the hour.

“There are no hard and fast rules surrounding participation in Earth Hour. We only ask that you flick that switch and have fun doing whatever you choose to do during that time. — from earthhour.org

As of today:
• 2848 cities and towns in 83 countries across all seven continents prepare to unite for Earth Hour
• 829 monuments and landmarks around the world to switch off lights in support of climate change action

You can read more about Earth Hour on their web site.