Billion people invited to switch off lights
March 26, 2009
The Empire State Building as viewed from the Rockefeller Center, December 2007. Around a billion people living in the world's major cities are being invited to turn off their lights at 8:30 p.m. local time on Saturday for "Earth Hour," described as the biggest mass campaign to demand action on climate change.
Around a billion people living in the world's major cities are being invited to turn off their lights at 8:30 p.m. local time on Saturday for "Earth Hour," described as the biggest mass campaign to demand action on climate change.
The Empire State Building, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Acropolis in Athens and the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan are among the buildings whose illuminations will be switched off for an hour, the organisers said on their website (http://www.earthhour.org/)/
More than 200 buildings in Paris will be dark for an hour, including the Louvre, Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Paris Opera House, according to the French branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
The Eiffel Tower will be plunged into darkness for five minutes and scrap a display of flashing lights scheduled for 9:00 p.m., Paris city hall said.
Earth Hour was launched by WWF in 2007.
Last year's event drew a claimed participation of 370 cities in 35 countries. Last week, the organisers said that 1,189 would be taking part this year.
People are being invited to provide blogs and short video clips (http://12seconds.tv/earthhour) on the ways of spending an hour in the dark.
The campaign has been backed by the United Nations, whose secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, last week described it as a "a clear message... (for) action on climate change" in the runup to a crucial meeting in Copenhagen.
The December conference aims at crafting a new global pact on curbing emissions of greenhouse gases and providing help for poor countries bearing the brunt of climate change.
(c) 2009 AFP
Feb 16, 2008 |
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"Jonathon Porritt , one of Gordon Brown's leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society. [...] Each person in Britain has far more impact on the environment than those in developing countries so cutting our population is one way to reduce that impact." - Jonathon 'the idiot' Porritt
I set my calendar to turn on every light I own, ...in defiance of social engineering dressed up as pseudo-science. Climate change as caused by man and controllable, is the epitome of dumb-guy science, perfect to sell to the masses and install socialism.
How can government 'cut the population' and leave intact freedom? It can't. Social engineering; idiots with calculators, poring over social statistics to save us from our selves. That's what this is about, their naive vision of xanadu.
I think the best thing to do is ignore the idiots who think turning off their lights will do a thing. All turning off the lights mean is that you want government to be involved in your life, telling you what you can buy, and when you can buy it. When you can have light and heat and when you cannot have heat and light. The only ones, if government has its way, that wont have to reduce power and fuel consuptions will be the liberal and environmental elite (Al Gore et al).