Lights Out for Earth Hour!

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All this week we’ve been talking purple for Purple Day, but Saturday night, we’re switching to black. On Saturday, March 28, millions of individuals and businesses around the globe will be switching off their lights for an hour at 8:30 p.m. for Earth Hour 2009. The goal is to send a strong message to policy makers as they create legislation to address global warming, and each person who participates is showing support for change.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 more than 50 million people participated in Earth Hour, and we watched many global landmarks go dark, including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square. (Watch the video here…)

In 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially joined the effort, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative to date.

Earth Hour is a great way to teach your little ones about the environment and how we can all help, and it has the added bonus of distraction-free family time. Have your family help prepare a flavor-rich meal that will delight the senses as you eat by candlelight. You can slice veggies into fun shapes and have the kids guess what they’re eating. Or invite a couple of neighbors over for a backyard evening adventure – maybe s’mores by a campfire? On Sunday, visit the Earth Hour websites for a review of the event’s success, and share the articles and news with your family to show them how much we can do when we all come together.

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Comments

MsGreene

What did we do?

5

We usually plan activities for Earth Hour, but this year we were so busy leading up to it that all we did was put a few pieces of wood in the fireplace. (We have wood from a tree that died and had to be cut down.) Conversations ensued. Nice conversations. And sleep. Cozy sleep -- all together, on the sofa around the fire.

It makes me wonder ... are some of our family problems and some of our sleep problems related to our lack of quiet times as a family, gathered around a fire?

MsGreene

Earth Hour has been so fun in the past ...

5

Looking forward to Earth Hour this year. How about you?

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Bev's picture
Truddle

We spent a quiet evening at

We spent a quiet evening at home, and at 8:30 all our lights went out. I was excited to look across the way to see if others were doing the same thing, but disapointed to see it lit up the same as always.

As Jamie and I moved around in the darkness - I was saddened to see how undark things really were. There was a glow in the kitchen coming from the answering machine, and from the stove clock - in the living room another glow coming from the dvd clock....

Progression they call it - moving forward...

It was amazing as we sat there in 'almost' darkness - we could hear the puppy snoring, the click, click of the kitty claws as they walked across the floor... and we talked.

It was a nice night!