Sydney in climate change blackout

Bravo, Sydney!

I find it particularly amusing about a comment from Hong Kong. What a stereotypical Chinese way of thinking: more concerns are placed upon the "face", rather than the "core"; and they end up doing nothing but being caught up in a quandary set up by themselves.
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Sydney's famous skyline was shrouded in darknessLights have been turned off across Australia's largest city, Sydney, in a hour-long event aimed at raising awareness of global warming.

At 1930 (0930 GMT) the city's skyline dimmed and normally bright landmarks like the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge went dark.

The so-called Earth Hour is supported by the New South Wales government, environmental groups and businesses.

Sydney hopes the event will make a very big statement on climate change.

The city of four million people is aiming to become the first anywhere to achieve a blackout on this scale.

The BBC's Phil Mercer, in Sydney, says by and large Sydney had never been this dark.

He says lights were off in the majority of the central business district's office blocks and large parts of the suburbs were also in darkness.

Co-operation

Greg Bourne of environmental group WWF, one of the driving forces behind Earth Hour, said the big switch off took months to plan.

"The logistics is really quite amazing in the sense every tower block is owned by one company, maybe leased by another company, have 10 tenants in and a manager and working through all of these people has been fantastic."

Many restaurants signed up and planned to serve diners by candlelight.

The owner of the Newtown Hotel, which says it is Australia's oldest gay bar, told the BBC before the blackout that they would have fun while trying to send a serious message.

"Sometimes drag queens [female impersonators] do look better in the dark anyway," said Roger Zee.

"It's up to the patrons. They'll actually have their own torches so they'll be able to light up the drag queens on the stage themselves."

Organisers want to encourage Australians to conserve energy and to think carefully about what they can do to cut pollution.

Every day millions of lights and computers are left on in deserted office blocks as well as in apartments and houses.

Campaigners have said that simply switching them off could reduce Sydney's greenhouse gas emissions by 5% over the next year.

Australia is one of the world's largest per capita producers of carbon dioxide and other gases that many scientists believe are helping to warm the earth's atmosphere.

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A few interesting comments:

Why doesn't John Howard and his Premiers sign up to Kyoto instead of pulling off publicity stunts. Perhaps this will get the residents of Australia to think and put pressure on their 'leaders' to do so.
--Andrew, Brisbane (soon to be Edinburgh)

Kudos to Sydney! Hong Kong made a similar attempt last year but unlike its counterpart in New South Wales, the government refused to participate in the campaign, claiming that it would give "adverse publicity to Hong Kong as an international metropolis". Let's hope that the precedent set by Sydney will help persuade other cities, and their governments, to follow suit.
--C. Chan, Hong Kong