Kudos to the World!

My daily trek to Google was marked by surprise today, for lo and behold, there was darkness! At first, I thought I had misspelled it, but no, the page had the familiar logo, the empty search bar, and of course, I saw that magical button that answered my queries on the daily.

Turn your lights down low, Google

So, what happened then? Well, for starters, Google just went up a notch in my Corporate Social Responsibility book, but that's not the point. Secondly, for those of you that don't know, March 29, 2008 is truly special because for an hour today, people from all over the world have been encouraged to flip the switch, conserve energy, keep it off...do the right thing if you may. Ah yes, it's Earth Hour!

A little history:

• The first Earth Hour was held in Sydney, Australia on March 31, 2007 between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm
• Estimated to have cut Sydney's electricity consumption by up to 10%
  
• As many as 2.2 million people participated
  

And here's the deal for 2008:

• Same idea, but with international flair
• 8pm-9pm in local time zones
  
• Some partner cities include New Delhi, Singapore, Christchurch, Trondheim, and Miami
  

So, to wrap up, the idea here is for everyone--households, businesses, and the like--to turn off non-essential electrical appliances between 8pm and 9pm today to promote electricity conservation and help our planet out by lowering our carbon emissions. In the words of the late, great Reggae icon Bob Marley,"Turn your lights down low!" I think he was on to something....