EARTH HOUR - 60 Minutes of Darkness.

A photo shows Gordon Kubanek, Frank de Jong, and Chris Bradshaw hold candles below the unlit Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Saturday, March 29, 2008. From Rome’s Colosseum to the Sydney Opera House, floodlit icons of civilization went dark Saturday for Earth Hour, a worldwide campaign to highlight the threat of climate change. The environmental group WWF urged governments, businesses and households to turn back to can

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Sydney, Australia goes dark

Chicago

Major Cities Go Dark for Earth Hour.

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, AP
Posted: 2008-03-29 23:33:25

CHICAGO (March 29) - From the Sydney Opera House to Rome’s Colosseum to the Sears Tower’s famous antennas in Chicago, floodlit icons of civilization went dark Saturday for Earth Hour, a worldwide campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.

Millions of people around the world shut off their lights for Earth Hour to highlight the need to conserve energy and fight global warming. More than 20 major cities and 300 towns signed up to participate.

The environmental group WWF urged governments, businesses and households to turn back to candle power for at least 60 minutes starting at 8 p.m. wherever they were.

The campaign began last year in Australia, and traveled this year from the South Pacific to Europe to North America in cadence with the setting of the sun.

“What’s amazing is that it’s transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea,” said Andy Ridley, executive director of Earth Hour. “It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody.”

Earth Hour officials hoped 100 million people would turn off their nonessential lights and electronic goods for the hour. Electricity plants produce greenhouse gases that fuel climate change.

In Chicago, lights on more than 200 downtown buildings were dimmed Saturday night, including the stripe of white light around the top of the John Hancock Center. The red-and-white marquee outside Wrigley Field also went dark.

“There’s a widespread belief that somehow people in the United States don’t understand that this is a problem that we’re lazy and wedded to our lifestyles. (Earth Hour) demonstrates that that is wrong,” Richard Moss, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the climate change vice president for WWF, said in Chicago on Saturday.

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AOL asks - people answered by 8:30am of March 30, 2008 - New York Time (that is during the night between midnight and 8:30 am)

Poll Results:

Are you turning off your lights for Earth Hour?

No                         65%       68,936
Yes                       35%        36,492

Total Votes: 105,428

Poll Results:

How much does global warming concern you?

A lot                  48%       48,964
Not at all         26%       27,059
A little              26%       26,336

Total Votes: 102,359