CHICAGO, March 29, 2008
World Landmarks Go Dark For Earth Hour
Global "Lights Out" Campaign Hopes To Show Impact Of Energy Conservation
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Photo
The Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House before, then during Earth Hour, as the Australian city shut off its lights to kick off a global dimming in an effort to combat climate change, March 29, 2008. Sydney is the first of more than 370 cities and towns in more than 35 countries from Fiji to Ireland to Canada to take part in Earth Hour, organizers said. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
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The environmental group WWF urged governments, businesses and households to turn back to candle power for at least 60 minutes starting at 8 p.m. wherever they were.
The campaign began last year in Australia, and traveled this year from the South Pacific to Europe to North America in cadence with the setting of the sun.
"What's amazing is that it's transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea," said Andy Ridley, executive director of Earth Hour. "It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody."
Earth Hour officials hoped 100 million people would turn off their nonessential lights and electronic goods for the hour. Electricity plants produce greenhouse gases that fuel climate change.
Several U.S. cities also plan symbolic blackouts or dimmings of monuments, including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
In Chicago, lights illuminating the Sears Tower's famous antennas flicked off. The red and white marquee outside Wrigley Field went dark. The stripe of white light around the top of the John Hancock Center disappeared.
Lights on more than 200 downtown Chicago buildings along with the state Capitol dome in Springfield were dimmed Saturday night.
"There's a widespread belief that somehow people in the United States don't understand that this is a problem that we're lazy and wedded to our lifestyles. (Earth Hour) demonstrates that that is wrong," Richard Moss, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the climate change vice president for WWF, said in Chicago on Saturday.
Enthusiasm for Earth Hour was even higher north of the U.S. border with 100-thousand Canadians out of a total of 300-thousand people worldwide registered online for the event - putting the country among top participants anywhere.
Thousands jammed Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto for a concert headlined by Nelly Furtado, who sang her hit song "Turn Out The Light," while lights on the city's C-N Tower were doused.
In Montreal, even the bulbs on the cross atop Mont Royal went out.
About 4,000 Canadian businesses, including hotels, stores and restaurants, signed on to take part.
The campaign began last year in Australia, and traveled this year from the South Pacific to Europe in cadence with the setting of the sun. Several U.S. cities also planned symbolic blackouts or dimmings of monuments, including at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
In Sydney, where an estimated 2.2 million observed the blackout last year, officials said it appeared at least as popular this time, involving untold candlelight dinners and beach-bonfire parties. The city's two architectural icons, the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, faded to black.
Last year's shutdown produced an estimated cut of 10.2 percent in Australia's carbon emissions for that hour.
More than two dozen cities and 300 towns across the globe planned their own smaller, largely symbolic switch-offs.
Lights went out at the famed Wat Arun Buddhist temple in Bangkok, Thailand; shopping and cultural centers in Manila, Philippines; several castles in Sweden and Denmark; the parliament building in Budapest, Hungary; a string of landmarks in Warsaw, Poland; and both London City Hall and Canterbury Cathedral in England.
Greece, an hour ahead of most of Europe, was the first on the continent to mark Earth Hour. On the isle of Aegina, near Athens, much of its population marched by candlelight to the port. Parts of Athens itself, including the floodlit city hall, also turned to black.
In Ireland, where environmentalists are part of the coalition government, lights-out orders went out for scores of government buildings, bridges and monuments in more than a dozen cities and towns.
Activists gathered outside one of Dublin's most impressive floodlit buildings, the riverfront Custom House, and cheered as the lights went out. The building houses the Environment Department, run by a Green Party minister.
But next door, the international banks and brokerages of Dublin's financial district blazed away with light, illuminating floor after empty floor of desks and idling computers.
"The banks should have embraced this wholeheartedly and they didn't. But it's a start. Maybe next year," said Cathy Flanagan, an Earth Hour organizer in Dublin.
Ireland's more than 7,000 pubs elected not to take part - in part because of the risk that Saturday night revelers could end up smashing glasses, falling down stairs, or setting themselves on fire with candles.
Likewise, much of Europe - including France, Germany, Spain and European Union institutions - planned nothing to mark Earth Hour.
Internet search engine Google lent its support to Earth Hour by blackening its normally white home page and challenging visitors: "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn."
For more information, visit the organizers' Web site at http://www.earthhour.org/.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 78 CommentsBest way to do that is REDUCE the birth rate! Less new mouths to feed means that many less cars on the road, that many less houses built, less pollution spewed, less utilities needed, less food and water needed.
Time to put a 10 year moratorium on births, eliminating all tax credits for having babies, and charge the parents the full costs for their kids- including schools and busing.
Republicans call themselves patriots, and then post this anarchic bvllsh*t. SanFran is one of America''s great cities.
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Posted by ubrew12 at 01:14 PM : Mar 29, 2008
I don''t call myself a patriot - but I do call San Francisco a cesspool. Every single dollar of Federal money should have been denied that city after the disgraceful attack on the Marine Corps. Sell your bs someplace else - actions speak louder than words, and SF''s action are to *** on the servicemen and women of this country. Period. When the earthquake finally (please) happens, I hope nobody lifts a *** finger to help.
Great idea.
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Posted by ubrew12 at 01:14 PM : Mar 29, 2008
Seriously... You really shouldn''t lump all republicans in the same boat. Really that is immature, everyone has their own beliefes and differences even if they consider themselves republican, democrat, black, white, man, woman, come on and get real. I for one am Republican, White Female who supports our military, doesn''t agree with Bush and Iraq, and I like San Francisco. Grow up and do not label all of one so called "group" into the same category of people in how they act and etc... do you seriously not think that there are no republicans living in san francisco.??? The people I dislike the most are people who judge me for being republican rather than getting to know me.
in the dark.
on. Also, he should have been president instead of this president, who is a ding-bat. Now, we could be getting another
ding-bat....Barack Obama. Never, never. You go
Hilliary!
It is spring here and we just had snow!
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Posted by ubrew12 at 02:52 PM : Mar 29, 2008
The very best thing about this situation is that the issue of the earthquake in this human toilet is not a question of if - it''s a question of WHEN. As in an absolute certainty, eventually. And when fire is destroying everything that hasn''t dropped into the ocean, you can be sure that you will hear cheering. The city council should have been strung from telephone poles. Liberal pu**ies. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow - there''s alway''s hope!
Posted by HadEnufff at 11:55 AM : Mar 29, 2008
You''re a moron! It takes way less light to start a light than what you''d save turning it off for an hour. A tiny spike to heat the filament of an incandescent IDIOT!!!
Thats disgusting. You''re talking about women and children too. I don''t think there''ll be cheering, just sadness and, hopefully, a commitment to rebuild. But it does seem to be SanFrans fate to have an earthquake. Its one of Americas great cities.
and republiCON noise machines all cranked up for
this article,
did you notice that when an article on global warming
hits the web site that a great many post come flooding in,
all the same length, all with a certain character spread and length in the user names,
this is what is called the republiCON noise machine,
paid for by the oil companies to diffuse and cast
doubt on any issue that might threaten their
greed driven drive towards more profit.
RepubliCON stooges, dance like a monkey, stooge
Posted by Joyous88
No, the only stooges are people like you. Hope you enjoy running your computer off of power generated by COAL power plants, you tool!
Meanwhile, my area (heavily conservative, btw) will use the only true "green" and renewable power source-hydroelectricity- provided by Grand Coulee, Priest Rapids, Wanapum, and Rock Island dam!
In other words, most places that are heavily conservative already use renewable green power for their houses. On the other hand, cities like New York, LA, San Francisco, and Washington DC use coal or nuclear power for theirs.
Get your *** story right, and if you can''t, I''d suggest for the good of all of us that you get off your computer and quit producing CO2 (ie quit breathing).
To say that all do is ABSURD.
Even the Weather Channel''''s very own founder said it''''s a scam and that Al Gore should be debating with his scientists.
But Al Gore refuses to do so!
WAKE UP WORLD.
You''''re being scammed!!
Posted by singinrick08
Quite right! And the earth is flat, too, didn''t you know? And the sun revolves around the earth. And the universe was created in seven days. And.....
Are we to believe you or your communitees built those dams? They were built by Democrats who taxed JP Morgan and the other robber barons and put people to work building them during the Great Depression and beyond. The robber barons refused to participate in our capitalism during the Depression, so FDR taxed them and built those dams, the rural electrification system and (eventually) the interstate system. Without all that, you''d be driving on dirt roads, burning trees for energy. Since you Repubs cut taxes in the 80s, we haven''t built cr*p, and our infrastructure is tanking (well, we do build weapons systems we dont use).
Sorry. I was goading him into posting his hatred for all to see. He gave three posts illustrating an important point about America: its horribly divided, and the guys who''d laugh at seeing SanFran fry have been in charge for 8 years. Thats important when the rest of the world is wondering, ''what the fvck is up with America?''. I don''t think all Repubs are like that but must note: of what exchanged between us, you had NOTHING to say about his obviously disturbed hatred, only about my reference that (some) Republicans are, in fact, anarchists, who believe in death and destruction, not life.
See, I have been telling you fools that Canada is better.:)
Once again liberal eco-nuts dupe the public.
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Posted by RingADing3 at 10:41 PM : Mar 29, 2008
You make me feel guilty....
More ethanol = higher prices for food
Once again liberal eco-nuts dupe the public.
You absolutly right. How many of the lib''s who think ethanol is the savior of mankind have even done enough homework on the subject to know that it takes more BTU''s(that is a measurement of energy for you lib''s) to make a gallon of ethanol (from corn) than you get when you burn it. That is a net loss of energy. The reason that Brazil is so efficient at making ethanol is they use sugar cane. We can''t use sugar cane for production because the price is artificially high due to subsidies that have been in place since FDR, and congress (mainly the Dem''s) refuse to due away with the subsidies.BTW, scientists are now figuring out that ethanol may actually produce more CO than gasoline.
Pure liberal nonsenceical feelgoodism.
Yeah, get your facts straight before posting nonsensical feelgoodism bashing others.
Why only do this once a year?
How about once a month? On the first! To remind everyone that for the rest of the month you should be thinking about conservation!
I went from paying $50 a month in electricity to $19! Granted 2 people are no longer living here .. but that still is what it is.
This is utterly meaningless. This exhibitionist self-preening by the alarmists of man-made global warning serves only to make these self righteous prigs feel good about themselves. Truly these people need to get lives and stop boring the rest of us with their mother earth cult.
I suspect it was libs that first discovered this. To understand somethings limitations you have to first be enthusiastic enough about its advantages to investigate it, and conservatives have traditionally promoted fossil fuels over ''green'' fuels until recently. Hence, since only libs were actually looking, they probably discovered the problem first. But NOT before Bush saw a way to send more tax dollars to his buddies at the corn lobby. None of them has cared about ethanol from the start (except for killing brain cells).
BTUs and Joules are both units of energy.
1J = 9.479E-4 Btu
The reason that Brazil is so efficient at making ethanol is they use sugar cane. We can''''t use sugar cane for production because the price is artificially high due to subsidies that have been in place since FDR, and congress (mainly the Dem''''s) refuse to due away with the subsidies.
Of course you will never admit your own party''s failings will you?
BTW-BTU and Joules are both measurements of energy
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