This post was going to be a little overdue but given this site was down for over a week and I’ve been feverishly getting it back on track, it’s now a lot overdue. I did um and ah about whether or not I’d publish it but came to the conclusion that I’m all for a good news story (even a late one) so I thought what the hell. Enjoy…
I recently wrote about Earth Hour 2009 where everyone was encouraged to switch off all lights for an hour as a vote against climate change and a vote for Earth. The purpose of Earth Hour was to raise the awareness of climate change and influence our world leaders who’ll be meeting in Copenhagen for the Global Climate Change Conference in December 2009.
This conference will be used to determine official government policies and actions against global warming and will replace the Kyoto Protocol. Earth Hour was a chance for the people of the world to cast their vote and make themselves heard.
Here are some of the key results of Earth Hour as published on the Earth Hour website;
- Nearly half of all Australians (47%) participated in Earth Hour.
- Australia’s major icons switched off: the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, St Kilda’s Luna Park, Story Bridge, Parliament House, WA State Memorial, Rundle Mall Lantern.
- 4088 cities, towns and municipalities in 88 countries across the globe, including China, India, Russia and Brazil participated.
- 18 out of 20 G20 countries took part.
- 9 out of 10 of the world’s most populated cities switched off.
- Famous landmarks that went dark: the Pyramids and the Sphinx (Egypt), Eiffel Tower (France), Vatican (Italy), Acropolis (Greece), Big Ben (UK), the Las Vegas Strip and Empire State Building (USA), Christ the Redeemer (Brazil), Bird’s Nest (China) and the Petronas Twin Towers (Malaysia).
Check out this news story on the Earth Hour 2009 Worldwide roll out;
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I am so impressed that Las Vegas strip shut down!! I never saw that coming…I love Earth Hour, and only found out about it this year.
If they could redirect the power from Las Vegas shutting down for 1 hour, they could probably power an entire small country for a month! Earth Hour only started in 2007 but it’s already gaining momentum. It’s great to see.
In the same vein if every light bulb was converted to a compact Fluorescent bulb similar power savings would be in effect and would be permanent. If only all American cars ran on Natural gas rather then gasoline we probably wouldn’t be dependent on Middle eastern oil.
Hi Robert,
Too true. Actually we’ve just replaced all the bulbs we can in our house with the compact fluorescents. They work well, save money and save energy. Can’t complain about that! Thanks for stopping by.