Action Alert: Earth Hour

Australia will be one of the first countries in the world to turn off its lights for an hour Saturday night as part of a global campaign to raise awareness about climate change.

Sydney — with its iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge — was among hundreds of cities and towns in more than 35 nations promising to go dark, organizers said.

“What’s amazing is that it’s transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea,” said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. “It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody.”

Organizers see the event as a way to encourage the world to conserve energy.

Cities in Fiji and New Zealand will be the first to cut lights as clocks strike 8 p.m. Two hours later, lights will go off at Australia’s most famous landmarks and in thousands of shops, apartments and houses nationwide. Cities elsewhere across Asia, Europe and North America will follow.

One of the last major cities to participate with be San Francisco — home to the soon-to-be dimmed Golden Gate Bridge.

While all the lights are unlikely to be cut, it is the symbolic darkening of monuments, businesses and even individual homes that they are anticipating.

Earth Hour debuted last year in Sydney and a reported 2 million people and 2,000 businesses participated, organizers said. The result was a 10.2 percent reduction in the city’s greenhouse gas emissions for the hour, they said…

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Every thing we can do to draw attention to global climate change helps, so please, lights out tonight from 8:00 to 9:00 PM, your time.

Cross-posted from Politics Plus