Earth Hour

I don't know how many cities are participating, but Toronto is attempting to "turn off the lights" from 8 pm to 9 pm tonight for "Earth Hour". Sydney, Australia started this program and even though it was the first year had a decrease in energy consumption of 10 percent, equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road for an hour. It is right in the middle of a Toronto/Montreal hockey game :lol so my husband is a little grumbly about it but he's on board. We are breaking out the candles and a board game!

Earth Hour US - Earth Hour 2008

The Associated Press: Sydney Goes Dark for Earth Hour

I'm on board :up

I'm game. Is it 8-9 whatever time zone you happen to be in?

I remember participating in the very first Earth Day back in the 70's. My best friend and I took my wagon, put a garbage can in it and went around the neighborhood picking up trash. I even have a picture of us somewhere doing this.
All our neighbors thought we were just "darling". :lol
But when they asked us what we were doing, we told them. So I like to think I've been in on saving the planet from the beginning AND passing the message on to others. :lol

It is supposed to be your own local time zone. I am going to go outside and see if I can actually see the stars! They have made a pretty big deal of it in our community and restaurants etc. are having local get togethers. We also start with our "green box" program for organic wastes this month. As well as regular recycling we are hoping to reduce trash by a total of 80 percent with a better recycle/pick up program. I'm going out to Home Depot to look for a proper recycle system, because although I am all for the recycling etc., I really don't want a smelly house :lol

I usually have my lights all out if I'm not in the room. I'm used to walking around in the dark to save energy and money. Besides, I have a lot of street lights that help illuminate the house so I don't walk into too many things!

We played Scattergories by candle light. Looking out our windows, I think we were the only ones participating near us, but we never heard anything about this locally ahead of time, just via the Internet.

Google is participating in this too. If you go to google.com, it's all black.

I would have loved to have participated, but alas, I was working on a major assignment for my class. Have to finish that first.

I would say about 70 percent of our neighbourhood participated. The pictures of the dark Toronto skyline were pretty awesome as well. I don't know if it is all symbolic, but it's good to raise awareness.

Most of my neighbourhood participated. Sadly, Mr. Rattus participated not at all, and I only participated for half an hour. I'm working on a big painting right now, but I turned the light in my studio and sat for half an hour until I couldn't contain my urge to paint any longer. I am reassured, however, by the fact that environmental consciousness is a regular and important part of my life and I add very little trash and take very few resources.