Monthly Recap and Google blacks out...

Clean My City is now two months young and growing. In March we had just under 500 unique visitors stop by. More than half of them making multiple visits. That is really cool because the entire point of Clean My City is to spread the word about recycling, picking up, planting, and keep those ideas in our minds so that we will take more action.

Did anyone participate in Earth Hour 2008 last Saturday?

Earth Hour is an annual international event held on the last Saturday of March that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening. The event is promoted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald.

The first Earth Hour was held on 31 March 2007 in Sydney, Australia between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm. The 2007 Earth Hour is estimated to have cut Sydney's mains electricity consumption by between 2.1% and 10.2% for that hour, with as many as 2.2 million people taking part. Earth Hour 2008 was held internationally on 29 March 2008 at 8 pm local time until 9 pm, marking the first anniversary of the event with many partner cities and individuals around the world participating.This also had a big impact on New Brunswick Canada. This hour saved 23.9 billion tons of CO2 emmisions. Earth Hour may also help reduce light pollution, and in 2008, coincides with the beginning of National Dark Sky Week in the USA. The 2009 Earth Hour will be held on March 28, 2009.

I participated, I turned off everything in my house for an hour, even so far as unplugging everything from the wall itself. I sat in the dark and played my acoustic guitar for an hour. No, I am not a hippy, but it was a good experience to get away from the TV, Internet, Stereo for an hour and just relax. I think this is a great idea and hope that more people find out about it and take part. The simple little things can make such a huge impact. Google showed their support as well by Blacking out their search page. They admit that this saved zero electricity but anyone that was on Google last saturday was exposed to the Earth Hour information. Good stuff google.