Albany to Join 'Earth Hour' Lights Out on March 23

The Albany City Council on Monday gave the green light for the city to join in this year's international observance of "Earth Hour," when people around the world are urged to turn off lights for an hour to show concern for the environment.

The observance will be held March 23 from 8:30-9:30 p.m.

"The community is encouraged to shut off lights for Earth Hour in awareness of climate protection," according to the council meeting summary distributed by the city Tuesday.

A staff report prepared for the council offers background on the event:

Earth Hour is an annual event that initiated in 2007, and is sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund. The event is held worldwide, and according to the website, “Earth Hour is the single, largest, symbolic mass participation event in the world. Born out of a hope that we could mobilize people to take action on climate change, Earth Hour now inspires a global community of millions of people in 7,001 cities and towns across 152 countries and territories to switch lights off for an hour as a massive show of concern for the environment”. Additional information regarding the history of Earth Hour and participation can be found on the website: www.earthhour.org. 

City staff will promote the event with outreach materials "encouraging awareness of both environmental sustainability and neighborhood resiliency," the report says. "Outreach materials will include a list of suggested activities neighborhoods can conduct during Earth Hour, or to commemorate the event such as a block gathering to discuss neighborhood safety and preparations should neighbors find themselves without power for a prolonged period of time, and identification of ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as simple residential energy efficiency improvements."

The staff report is attached to this article.