I hope all you Americans (and I mean that in the broadest sense: from Canada all the way down to Chile) are geared up for Earth Hour tonight, ready to turn off all the lights at 8:30PM and see some stars. Though it’s rainy and overcast in NYC (or it was when I wrote this earlier today now it’s lovely) so I don’t fancy our chances but there must be non-rainy parts of the Americas.
I am excited about Earth Hour and hoping more people get behind it this year. There’s something magical about a city in darkness.1 There was some awful aspects to the blackout back in 2003 but NYC at night was not one of them.
- You know unless it’s because the aliens are invading and about to kill us all. [↩]
Yep, I plan to turn off the lights 830pm eastern time in Virginia. Rainy and overcast too. I like the idea of Earth day and I got onto the website. On msn I saw an article on the particpation of a darkened Sydney and I think they said over 200 countries were participating…cool. Maybe we should do things like this more often. Who knows what else we could do too…
PS I liked your reasoning on why a dark Earth is not always a good thing. hahah cat
We timed our dinner last night (in Sydney) to fit with Earth Hour, so ended up having a romantic candlelit dinner by our huge living room window, overlooking the water. It was lovely!
Sadly, no other lights went off around us, so I’m glad to see it was more of a success in Sydney proper. Hope it goes well in the rest of the world!
We had our eldest child read up on Earth Hour last night. Since bedtime regularly starts (and lights out) at 8:30pm, and we wanted them to be involved, we’re actually turning the lights out starting at 7:30pm (which is 8:30 eastern time). We’ll leave them out ’til 9:30pm. 🙂
Mum and I lit some candles and went onto the balcony to play boggle! Lots of fun, but we were using my iPod’s battery to play music — not technically lights but I still felt kinda guilty.
I went back to the original article and it had been changed. Now it says 88 countries and over 400 cities are participating. Sorry I quoted the wrong information. That still is a lot and a good thing. Some cities for the first time. I have already had one accident in the dark (I am not a person who is comfortable in total darkness) but the lights stayed off. The website says to take pictures or videos or blog during earth hour. I kind of wondered how those pictures of total darkness would come out but that is why we have digital cameras! Not sure how many are participating out here but I have noticed many lights are off and it is pretty dark out there. Hope it is a good and safe earth hour for everyone out there. (And do not be like me and start having accidents.) cat
As a life-long environmentalist (54 years), I’ve supported many silly things in my life, but earth hour is too silly and meaningless for me.
I will agree that the nights are really pretty without all the city lights. Right now I am not in the city, though, so I will see them regardless of if anyone turns out their lights or not. I can turn mine out but I don’t know if my apartment mates will or not.
I live in Las Vegas, so there’s a lot of lights to turn off, so it was actually awesome to see that a lot of hotels in the dark. My family also participated, and we all ended up appreciating how much we rely on electricity to get everything done.
Your remark there about Americans being from Canada all the way to Chile came to my attention because when I moved to the US a couple of years ago I was told at school there were 7 continents [North and South America counted as being separate, and Australia is its own continent], which made not sense to me because where I come from I was always taught that there where only 5. Now I just take it as one of those cultural variations, but I’m curious how do they teach it in Australia?