Remember that tonight at 8:30 PM is EARTH HOUR and everyone around the globe (with electricity) is asked to turn out all of your lights for an hour in honor of planet earth. Take that, Florida Power and Light.
San Diego and the world dims for Earth Hour
By Hieu Tran Phan (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer
1:19 p.m. March 28, 2009
These three combo photos show Malaysia's landmark Petronas Twin Towers, right, along with other buildings in downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, having their lights turned off to mark Earth Hour Saturday. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin) - AP
Groups working to combat global warming are urging people in San Diego County and worldwide to dim or turn off all nonessential lighting for an hour starting at 8:30 p.m. Saturday in their local time zone.
The goal of the second annual Earth Hour, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, is to have 1 billion participants join in a symbolic act of using less energy. Gasoline, electricity and other power sources drawn mostly from fossil fuels generate greenhouse gases, which trap heat and add to the warming of the planet.
While debate persists about how much humans are contributing to climate change, the United Nations, major research organizations and most scientists are increasingly calling for efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
More than 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries have signed up for this year's Earth Hour, and Sydney became the first metropolitan area to observe the campaign.
Local cities that have registered include Chula Vista, Coronado, El Cajon and San Diego, according to the Web site earthhour.org.
“But you don't have to fill out information or do anything formal,” Dan Forman, a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, said Saturday morning. “We're just asking everyone to remember to flip their light switches tonight.”
Involvement in Earth Hour has skyrocketed since last year's event, which drew participation from 400 cities after Sydney held a solo event in 2007. Interest has spiked ahead of planned negotiations on a new global warming treaty in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December. The last global accord, the Kyoto Protocol, is set to expire in 2012.
Despite the attention paid to the upcoming Copenhagen talks, Earth Hour organizers initially feared that enthusiasm for the 2009 event would wane because of significant focus on the global economic crisis, said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley.
Instead, he said, the opposite seems to be happening.
“Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign . . . 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,” Ridley said. “On the other side of it, there's savings in cutting your power usage and being more sustainable and more efficient.”
In Australia, people attended candlelit speed-dating events and gathered at outdoor concerts as the hour of darkness rolled through the country. Sydney's glittering harbor was bathed in shadows as lights dimmed on the steel arch of the city's iconic Harbour Bridge and the nearby Opera House.
Earlier Saturday, the Chatham Islands, a group of small islands about 500 miles east of New Zealand, officially launched Earth Hour by switching off its diesel generators. Soon after, the lights of Auckland's Sky Tower, the tallest man-made structure in New Zealand, blinked off.
Forty-four New Zealand towns and cities participated in the event, and more than 60,000 people showed up for an Earth Hour-themed hot air ballooning festival in the city of Hamilton.
At Scott Base in Antarctica, New Zealand's 26-member winter team resorted to minimum safety lighting and switched off appliances and computers.
The United Nation's headquarters in New York and other U.N. facilities were dimming their lights for an hour to signal the need for a new global climate treaty.
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.”
“We are on a dangerous path. Our planet is warming. We must change our ways. . . . We need sustainable energy for a more climate-friendly, prosperous world,” Ban said.
China was participating in the campaign for the first time, with Beijing turning off the lights at its Bird's Nest Stadium and Water Cube, the most prominent venues for the Olympics. In addition, Shanghai cut lights in all government buildings and other structures on its waterfront.
Thailand's prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, pressed a button that switched off the lights on Khao San Road, a famous haven for budget travelers in Bangkok that is packed with bars and outdoor cafes. City officials then hosted an hourlong, outdoor seminar on global warming that offered ideas for reducing energy consumption.
The lights also went out at the Grand Palace and other riverside monuments, and on several of the Thai capital's busiest boulevards.
On Bangkok's bustling Silom Road several street vendors hawking pirated DVDs, T-shirts and fake watches chipped in by turning off the bulbs that light their stalls.
Earth Hour organizers say there's no uniform way to measure how much energy is saved worldwide through the event.
Earth Hour 2009 has garnered support from multinational corporations, nonprofit groups, schools, scientists and celebrities such as Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu.
McDonald's Corp. planned to dim its arches at 500 locations around the Midwest in the United States. The Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont hotel chains and Coca-Cola Co. also planned to participate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Hieu Tran Phan: (619) 293-1371; (Contact)
Find this article at:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/mar/28/bn28hour131944/?zIndex=74206
3 comments:
lights on, nobody home.
I didn't sit in the dark for an hour..but I shut off everything I wasn't using...like I do every day. Baby steps people..unplug your cell phone charger when not charging!
I guess most of you don't realize that this stunt of turning lights off is nothing but a mind game played by the global elite, through one of their fronts, the World Wildlife Fund, with the intent of domesticating the sheep into accepting the idea of paying carbon taxes to European banksters.
You see, the World Wildlife Fund was created by Prince Bernard from Belgium, one of the founders of the Bildeberg Group (aka Illuminati), along with Rockefeller and the Rothschild family. The global warming Ponzi scheme allows these elitists to collect taxes from American workers, in order to enrich European oligarchs who control the Fed, who plan wars, who picks American presidents, who just stole your 401 (k) with their deliberate economic crisis, who got trillions in bailouts from the Fed through AIG, etc.
You people should take the filters off and try to see through the scams, the tricks, the mind games, the rigged dualities of Republican vs Democrat, liberal vs conservative, black vs white. These powerful groups are playing all for a fool.
These groups create fronts like the World Wildlife Fund to infiltrate third world countries and rape them from their natural resources. Just look at how many colonies the Europeans had around the world, stealing naturals resources from Africa, India, Asia, the Caribbean, etc. And now they are concerned about their environment? Yeah right.
This trick of asking the world (and using Hollywood celebs to look legit) to turn lights off is a big example of of what's called, "a psyop". Search psyop. Wake up, open your eyes, take the red pill, stop believing in celeb endorsements (most of them are high school dropouts), and stop believing in government officials or funds and non-profits "to protect the wildlife" or anything they try to pass "to protect the children". It's all rigged; these groups couldn't care less about animals or children. Haven't you seen all yet, or have you become domesticated the way they like it? Global Warming is a Ponzi scheme to steal your taxes.
Post a Comment