Mayor Larry O’Brien announced this morning that the City of Ottawa in partnership with Hydro Ottawa has signed on to Earth Hour, a movement that started last year in Australia and which is going global this year through the sponsorship of the World Wildlife Fund.
The Earth Hour campaign asks individuals, households and businesses to shut off all their lights from 8pm to 9pm on Saturday March 29th in a gesture of solidarity on the issue of climate change. 2.2 million people participated in the 2007 Earth Hour based in Sydney Australia, resulting in a 10% electricity usage drop for that hour and a reduction of 25,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
In December of 2007 Toronto was named one of the seven flagship cities for Earth Hour 2008, marking a level of involvement all Canadians should be proud of. You can find information about Toronto’s participation at WWF Canada’s website. Unfortunately, WWF Canada has yet to post anything about other efforts across the country.
As an Ottawa resident and greenliving-keener, I’d like to see the Canadian chapter of the sponsor of this global movement take a more national approach to the Earth Hour campaign. Let’s all make the world take notice of Ottawa by pledging in droves to the turn off our lights on March 29th.
On-line news coverage of Ottawa’s announcement: Canada.com, The Toronto Star
Green Living Ottawa 
Earth Hour — Earth Day for the short attention span: the kind of meaningless, and above all cheap initiative we’ve come to expect from Hizzoner and this city council
L’il Ol’ Davey, the idea came from Sydney, Australia in 2007. Our city is finally joining many world-class cities the world over to do the right thing, if only for one hour! You really need to do your homework before giving our mayor such backhanded compliments.
To go even further, I hope folks will consider my idea of having an “unplugged day” once every week. It’s great for saving energy, and it means that the family spends some face-to-face, distraction-free time together every week. It’s up to us to do every little thing we can.
Not that I am thrilled with our mayor, but at least he and City Council did the right thing to sign us up for Earth Hour.