Last March the city of Sydney plunged itself into darkness to make a statement about climate change.

2.2 million people and 2100 businesses switched their lights off for one hour which, according to the Earth Hour website, reduced Sydney’s energy consumption by 10.2%, the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for one hour. Now that’s impressive.

Earth Hour is happening again this year but on a global scale and with those impressive numbers on saving energy how can you not be involved?

We at Make Hay have signed up to support Earth Hour and committed to switching off our lights for one hour at 8pm on 29th March. You can get involved too by visiting the WWF’s Earth Hour website and giving your support.

This ties in a little with some of my previous posts about energy waste through unnecessary lighting and Earth Hour goes to show just how unnecessary it is.

Recently Nottingham City Council held an event called Nottingham Light Night which, yes you guessed it, meant wasting more electricity on pointless lighting. Sometimes I wonder whether they’ve actually heard about what’s happening to the planet but that’s a whole other topic I could rant on about forverer.

You might ask what the point is of just switching off for a once-a-year event, its what you do every day that counts and I would totally agree. However, I can’t help being inspired when people decide to put their heads together and demonstrate how they feel about an important issue. An event like this also shows that a positive message can spread far and wide and we all have the ability to effect change.

Watch the Earth Hour video and you’ll see what I mean…

Visit www.earthhour.org