Lights Out Saturday for Earth Hour

Looking for something to do this weekend? How about turning out the lights this Saturday at 8:30 pm to mark Earth Hour? Earth Hour, organized by WWF, is a worldwide hour of darkness meant to get people thinking about how our actions as individuals can add up to make a positive difference in the health of our planet.

Earth Hour debuted in Sydney, Australia in 2007 with 22 million Aussies and 2,000 businesses taking part. A year later the movement had gone global, with 50 million souls in 35 countries powering down for an hour. Last year was Earth Hour’s biggest yet, with folks in 128 countries participating.

More on Earth Hour and a list of world monuments going dark on Saturday after the jump.

Earth Hour asks we turn off the lights, think about the environment, and wonder how we can go beyond the hour in our daily lives to conserve and enact positive environmental change. Just don’t order pizza, as I did during Earth Hour ’08: the poor delivery guy was wary of our hungry posse laying in wait for him from the apartment’s dark corners.
And it’s not just homes going dark but, according to Earth Hour’s blog, major world monuments and even World Heritage sites are turning off the lights too, including:

• The world’s tallest building – Burj Khalifa, Dubai

• Times Square, New York

• Christ the Redeemer statue, Brazil

• National Monument, Indonesia

• London Eye

• National Mausoleum, Pakistan  

• Boudhanath Stupa, Nepal

• Table Mountain, South Africa

• Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

• The Obelisk, Argentina

• Davis Station, in Antarctica

• Opera House, Sydney

• Government House, Hong Kong

• Royal Palace, Thailand

• Niagara Falls, Canada

For more monuments and world icons going dark on Saturday, click here.
 
How will you go “beyond Earth Hour”: biking more, cutting down on shower time, lowering the thermostat … ? Tell us in the comments section below.

Photos: Paris, Copyright WWF/Nina Munn; Buenos Aires, Copyright WWF/Marcelo Tucuna.