Earth Hour

Google turned out the lights on their home page today to encourage people to participate in Earth Hour from 8:00 - 9:00 in their local time zone. Says their page...

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.

It's an easy idea--turn out your lights for an hour tonight (a good time to watch a movie in the dark, I guess) to help conserve energy. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative website provides directions for using the energy saving features of your computer. Many people don't realize how much energy computers actually conserve or that many power adapters for rechargeable electronics consume energy when plugged in even when not connected to the device they charge. Judging by the load times of the CSCI website, it seems a lot of people are following the link from the Google home page today.

What's odd, though, is that while Google describes this as a global awareness initiative, Google's international home pages don't seem to be participating. Here are pictures of the Polish (www.google.pl), French (www.google.fr), and Japanese (www.google.jp) versions of the Google home page today.