ENVIRONMENT

World Goes Dark for Earth Hour

To draw attention to climate change.

Starting in New Zealand, moving through Sydney and its famous opera house, making its way through Paris and the Eiffel Tower, and finally into New York and the Empire State Building, a wave of darkness will pass through the world today for Earth Hour. The event, in which participating cities and homes shut off their power to showcase the importance of conservation, will include 126 countries this year, the largest group since its 2007 launch. While the sight of world landmarks blacked out might be interesting, the actual effects of the exercise on emissions are said to be close to nil. "People ought to focus on general efficiency measures to reduce their energy use overall rather than switch everything off for an hour because that might not have an efficiency effect on the network overall," Ross Hayman, a spokesman for the U.K.'s National Grid told the Telegraph.