King County to Turn Lights off During Global Earth Hour Tonight

As part of a global call for action on climate change, King County will join hundreds of millions of people and tens of thousands of organizations by having its non-essential facilities go dark for one hour from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. tonight, March 26.

King County Executive Dow Constantine signed a proclamation in support of Earth Hour 2011, a global climate event led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), according to a county press release. 

"Turning off the lights for one hour is a positive gesture to call attention to the relationship between energy use and climate change,” said Constantine. “The real challenge is translating this gesture into earth-friendly actions we can take at all hours of everyday.”

Lights will stay on where needed at county facilities for public safety, security and essential operations. Building superintendents will see that non-essential lighting will be off from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

"We encourage residents and businesses to think about their energy use and turn off all non-essential lights, electrical appliances, electronics, and machines," said

Earth Hour is a global WWF initiative that began in Sydney in 2007, when 2 million people switched off their lights. In 2008, more than 50 million people all over the world took part in the action. In 2009 almost 1 billion people worldwide switched off their lights and in 2010, Earth Hour involved 4,200 cities in 125 countries.

Learn more about Earth Hour at http://www.earthhour.org/Homepage.aspx.

See how King County is responding to climate change and learn actions that you or your business can take to reduce your environmental footprint at http://www.kingcounty.gov/climate.