Earth Hour 2008: Will you be in the dark?

On Saturday, March 29, (that's tomorrow, mark your calendars!) at exactly 8:00 pm local time, people all over the globe will be turning off their lights for an hour to show their support for energy conservation and to raise awareness of global warming. Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the event will begin in New Zealand and work its way around the planet according to global time zones. Individuals, companies, and even cities are all getting in on it. Imagine entire skyscrapers, bridges, neighborhoods - suddenly blinking off. 

Why should you participate in Earth Hour? Turning off your lights for just one hour out of the year won't even make a dent in the level of carbon emissions, so what's the point? The point of Earth Hour is to raise global awareness of the connection between energy use and climate change. It will also prove to be a strong statement that will show who is taking action to fight global warming and who isn't. (Read the CNN article Will It Matter? to learn more.) 

But what if Earth Hour happened every Saturday? How about every night? What if everyone started dimming their lights an hour earlier at night, or if we ate dinner by candlelight once a week? What if every office building and big box store turned off its lights at night? (Is it really necessary for the inside of a store to be lit up at 3am?) While Earth Hour 2008 may not impact global warming immediately, it can still serve to be an example of how changing our habits can bring about real positive change.