"Earth Hour," a one-hour lights-out

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Greenspace: Environmental news from California

If you're strolling along the Santa Monica Pier on Saturday
night, March 28, don't be surprised if the Ferris wheel lights wink
out. If you're driving along a Los Angeles freeway looking for the
circular landmark of the Capitol Records Tower, be warned: It will all
but disappear for an hour.
It's all part of a massive effort in which 1,500 cities, towns
and villages in 80 countries have reportedly signed up for the third
annual "Earth Hour," a one-hour lights-out event at 8:30 p.m. local
time. The cause: "a global vote for action on climate change."
So if you're on your honeymoon in Paris, forget about swooning
over a dreamily illuminated Eiffel Tower. If you're celebrating your
anniversary in New York, don't plan on snapping your photo in front of
the Coca-Cola digital billboard on Times Square. The beam of the Luxor
Las Vegas won't be seen from space. Even a few Nashville honky-tonks
say they'll dim the neon.
The World Wildlife Fund, which is normally more focused on
science and policy than PR gimmicks, has recruited politicians and
corporations to join in what began in 2007 as an experiment in Sydney,
Australia, with 2.2 million participants. Last year, the group says,
50 million people turned off lights on seven continents — a number
that has not been subject to scientific peer review.
"Turning off the lights is just the beginning," WWF Chief
Executive Carter Roberts says in a news release. "We're asking
everyone to also make commitments to reduce their energy use during
the rest of the year, and to ask their elected representatives to do
the right thing because we need climate legislation now."
Celebrities who swarm to uncontroversial causes have signed up by
the dozen. No one, after all, is being asked to chain themselves to
the gate of a carbon-spewing coal-fired power plant. Alanis Morissette
clips her toenails in a 30-second Earth Hour video as a promotion for
the event's slogan: "The Huge Turn Off."

— Margot Roosevelt