Hello and welcome to our blog,
We are Lights Out America, a grassroots community group now organizing a nationwide energy savings event on Saturday, March 29, 2008. On this night, we invite the entire nation including businesses, city and federal government agencies, schools, and individuals to turn off all non-essential lighting to save energy.
We started with a local event in San Francisco for which we created a template and lessons learned that can be applied in creating similar events in cities throughout the country. In the process of building Lights Out San Francisco we were contacted by people in cities across the country, and even around the world, in hopes of organizing Lights Out events in their own towns. With that, we decided to spread our campaign nationally and globally.
You may ask: what good does one hour do? What do we hope to accomplish?
Today, the United States consumes more energy and emits more greenhouse gases than any other country in the world. Our nation's growing appetite for energy must be controlled to protect our planet from the effects of the climate crisis.
We were inspired by a similar event recently held in Sydney, Australia, called Earth Hour. In Sydney, 2.2 million people participated. Their one hour of lights out meant that 24.86 tons of carbon dioxide were not released into the air - the equivalent of taking 48,613 cars off the road for one hour.
Of course, we'd hope for the same or better here.
Polls show that Americans are concerned about climate change (71% believe it is real and 60% believe it poses a serious problem). We've consistently seen that people want to do their part to combat climate change, but they're not sure what or how easy it can be.
Now is the time to organize the nation and give everyone an active role in reducing energy consumption. A part of the solution to climate change involves education and giving people simple tasks that are easy to achieve.
On Saturday, March 29th we invite households nationwide to install one compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) and turn off all non-essential lighting to save energy and fight global warming. The day will end with a one-hour lights out celebration, which we hope will take place across the US.
How can you get involved? We're glad you asked. Your support is critical to making Lights Out America a success.
If you are a business or individual, pledge your support to turn your non-essential lighting off on March 29. If you are interested in volunteering or helping us, email us at
volunteer@lightsamerica.org. You can also
.Please join us in turning out your non-essential lights on Saturday, March 29, 2008, and stay tuned here for more information.
Warm regards,
The Lights Out America Team
3 comments:
Great initiatives. Biggest support from Denmark, Copenhagen, where we have announced the same initiative - and on the same date - Mar. 29th.
We went public the 3rd of October.
Best regards
Eskil Holten Haargaard
Campaign Manager
WWF Denmark
Ryesgade 3 F, 2200 Copenhagen N
phone: + 45 35 24 78 35/ Mobile +45 20 61 94 34
www.wwf.dk
e.holten@wwf.dk
u r moving and leading people in to lights. so best regards and wishes
arun
You rock. Recently, I was sent a NASA picture of the northern hemisphere (the US and Europe) from space, and I was literally gobsmacked. I was horrified at how much like a Christmas tree the earth looks when all those lights are burning all that energy. Its a disgrace!
I'm so glad therefore that I found your blog. Here in Sydney, Australia, we recently turned off lights in all offices in the city for one hour, it was a great success, with many large companies happy to cooperate.
Best wishes and God bless for your campaign! This is something everone needs to get behind, an important cooperative effort for the sake of our world.
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