NSW: Lights go out across Australia for Earth Hour
28 Mar 2009 8:43 PM
SYDNEY, March 28 AAP - Sydney's famous harbour landmarks and many of its high rise buildings have again been plunged into darkness, with tens of thousands of residents and businesses also turning their lights off for Earth Hour.
Now in its third year, Earth Hour saw Sydney turn off its bright lights in aid of the environment.
Earth Hour originated in Sydney in 2007, with just 2.2 million Sydneysiders taking part.
The event has now become a truly global event, with almost 4,000 cities and towns around the world, and about one billion people, expected to take part.
In Sydney, city landmarks including the Harbour Bridge, Opera House, and Anzac Bridge powered down for an hour from 8.30pm (AEDT), when ferries at Circular Quay blew their horns to signal the start of the event.
Residents and businesses across Sydney switched off lights, while people gathered at harbourside vantage points such as the Botanic Gardens, Kirribilli and Taronga Zoo, to see the city wreathed in darkness.
NSW Parliament House also went dark for 60 minutes.
Celebrations in Melbourne included a bicycle-powered concert at Federation Square, with more than 8,000 people expected to watch performances by Nic Cester, Chris Cheney, Kram, Ash Naylor, Renee Geyer and Vika and Linda.
Many of Melbourne's key buildings, including St Paul's Cathedral, turned their lights off for Earth Hour.
Lights at prominent landmarks in other capital cities, including Parliament House in Canberra, also went out. Speaking at Bondi Beach earlier on Saturday, Earth Hour director Andy Ridley said the event was not merely to reduce energy consumption for one hour on one day of the year, but to get people thinking about climate change.
"We need massive change - one hour in terms of change is not that much," he said.
"The primary reason we do it is because we want people to think, even if it is for an hour, what they can do to lower their carbon footprint, and ideally take that beyond the hour."
Atlanta, San Francisco, Bangkok, Vancouver and Dublin were among 371 cities and towns to join the Earth Hour movement in 2008.
In 2009 the figure has ballooned to at least 3,929 cities and towns in 87 countries.
Newly listed landmarks that will switch lights off in 2009 include the Eiffel Tower, the Vatican, Beijing's Birds Nest Olympic stadium, The London Eye, and Egypt's Great Pyramids at Giza.
And climbers taking on Mount Everest intend on carrying an Earth Hour flag with them.
Chatham Island, the largest of a tiny group of Pacific islands 800km southeast of New Zealand, kicked off Earth Hour by switching off its diesel generators at 8.30pm local time (1745 AEDT) on Saturday, AFP reported.
New Zealand followed suit, including switch-offs of the country's tallest building, the Sky Tower in Auckland, and the Beehive parliament building in Wellington
