Over at the LA Times I just read an article about one man’s efforts to get San Francisco to turn off the lights for one hour on October 20, 2007 from 8:00pm to 9:00pm. When I read this I thought to myself what a great idea this would be. But instead of just in San Francisco, how about across the entire United States?

Seems that Nate Taylor was in Sydney one night for dinner, when all of a sudden all of the lights went out. Thinking it was a power failure of some sort, he just took it in stride. But he soon learned that it was a planned black out held each year called Earth Hour when everyone voluntarily turns off the lights for one hour as a symbolic gesture. Even this simple act of turning off the lights for one hour reduced carbon dioxide by 25 tons which equaled removing about 50,000 cars from the road for one hour.

The article goes on to state:

Tyler isn’t talking about creating a public safety hazard by shutting off street lamps or traffic lights. He’s targeting nonessential lighting: floodlights at used-car lots, atmospheric illumination of the Golden Gate Bridge, the neon movie marquee and all the bulbs left burning at night in empty high rises.

He’s also not advocating major personal lifestyle changes — at least not yet. For now, he wants family members, neighbors and colleagues to join together in taking one simple, hourlong stand against mindless energy use. Turn off a hallway light, a computer, a TV. See how good it feels, he says, and you might begin to reconsider the extent of your personal energy use.

“People are burning needless energy and not even knowing it. They’re walking out of the office at night without turning off the light or shutting down the computer. We need to hit restart and start a conversation about how important this is,” he said.

“If we don’t do something, by 2050, all the polar bears will be gone. That’s where Santa Claus lives, man. That’s a bummer.”

So let’s pass this on to our family, friends, and fellow employees and see if we can all make a difference. It would be interesting to see just how much energy we could save by just turning off the lights for only one hour. Keep October 20th, 2007 on your calendar and turn off the lights, America.

Comments welcome.

LA Times article is here.

PS I just thought of something. Why not make this a world event?

[tags]lights, one hour, turn off, energy[/tags]