Turn Off the Lights for a Brighter Future

By Stefan Marti

Sydney Opera House, lights on and off.

Imagine, for a moment, a city in darkness.  The stars above, the only light.  Then imagine taking 48,616 cars off the highways with the flick of a switch.

It starts with an hour.  This month, Saturday, March 29th at 8pm is Earth Hour.  Earth Hour is a global movement organized by the World Wildlife Fund to reduce our impact on climate change.  For sixty minutes, cities across the globe will be turning off their lights.

It began last year in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million people and 2,100 businesses turned off their lights for an hour.  The Harbor Bridge and Opera House went dark.  Weddings took place by candlelight.  The rest of the world took notice.

This year dozens of major global cities are joining in Earth Hour, turning a symbolic event into a global movement.  From Sydney to Copenhagen, Bangkok to Tel Aviv, and Dublin to Chicago, cities across the world are getting involved.  In a rolling wave from one time zone to the next, cities will turn off their lights for an hour.  Vancouver and San Francisco will be the final cities to go dark.

On March 11th, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom held a press conference to discuss the city’s participation in Earth Hour as a component of his administration’s continuing initiatives on climate change. If you or your business would like to get involved, click here.

The global event is both symbolic and practical. The ultimate goal is to get us to reduce the amount of energy we use and to lessen our impact on global warming.  Yet even in an hour, a great deal of energy can be saved.

According to Earth Hour organizers, if the greenhouse reduction achieved in the Sydney Central Business District during Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year.

Of course, cities won’t be turning off their lights continuously for a year, but Sydney is only a single town.  If every city across the globe turned off their lights for an hour, the effect would be thousands of times greater.  And this could be done multiple times a year.

Last year in Sydney, Earth Hour achieved a C02 reduction of 10.2%.  However, the main aim of the campaign is for people to be energy efficient beyond Earth Hour, making small actions everyday to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. High CO2 levels in the atmosphere and rising global temperatures could have a devastating impact on our oceans, including our Sanctuary.

Only nonessential lights will be turned off, so there are no safety concerns during the event.  Just find a quiet space outside or light a candle in your home and enjoy San Francisco in the dark.

Below are eight things you can do every day to reduce your carbon footprint:

• Turn off appliances while not in use
• Switch your lights to energy efficient bulbs
• Turn off lights when you’re not in a room
• Walk, bike or carpool when you can
• Reduce, reuse, recycle
• Turn down the thermostat at night
• Buy locally produced meats and produce
• Support green power