From 8 to 9 p.m. Saturday, darkness will fall upon downtown Phoenix - at least that's the plan.
Phoenix is a flagship city in Earth Hour, an international event where millions will ban together to conserve energy by turning off their lights for an hour.
"The city's become very interested in green and sustainable processes and projects, because saving energy saves money on the bottom line, and we need to be good stewards of the public dollars," said Cynthia Seelhammer, Phoenix's deputy city manager.
Regardless of one's opinions on global warming and climate change, conserving energy makes fiscal sense and saves taxpayer money, she said.
The World Wildlife
Fund, one of the world's largest environmental organizations, is hosting the event to make people more aware of their impact on the environment.
Phoenix was chosen as a leader in the effort and will turn off all of the power of its downtown city run buildings.
"It sounds easy, but its kind of sticky, when you're talking about big, tall buildings, ball parks and convention centers," said Leslie Aun, spokesperson for the World Wildlife Fund in the U.S. "There's a whole electrical
system that really isn't designed to be turned on or off. So to actually pick a specific time in the day and have all of these buildings go off at the same time is quite a logistical challenge."
The first Earth Hour took place in Australia in 2007. More than 2 million people and 2,000
businesses participated by turning off their lights, she said.
"It was such a big deal that the World Wildlife Fund decided to take it to a global platform here in the U.S.," Aun said.
Given the complexity of darkening a major international city's downtown area, the event caught the attention of the world.
When city officials contacted the World Wildlife Fund, they were told that the organizers were looking for a flagship city in the Mountain Time zone. The Fund wanted a major city in each of the U.S.'s continental time zones to participate in Earth Hour and Phoenix was chosen.
The city has a genuine commitment to improving the environment, Aun said.
"We didn't want to go to a place where there was a mayor who though climate change wasn't real," she said. "Sort of our benchmark was, 'is it a city that has a skyline that will be impressive if you darken it? A community that is willing to coalesce around an issue?'"
The other flagship cities are San Francisco, Chicago and Atlanta.
"What's really been wonderful is the way this thing has taken on a life of its on. Not only are we seeing huge participation in the flagship cities. We now have 31 additional US cities to say, 'hey, we want to do it, too, in one way or another,'" Aun said.
Some of the other major cities participating include Honolulu, Charlotte, Denver, St. Louis and Miami.
But Earth Hour isn't limited to city buildings. Businesses, neighborhoods and others have chosen to participate. The city has notified residents about the event via email, newsletter, websites and the telephone message systems.
Candlelight dinners
Stoudemire's Downtown will not only turn off its lights during this peak time for restaurants, but plans to offer an candlelit, economically-friendly menu.
Waiters wearing glow sticks will serve everything from all-natural beef strip loin to an Eco'tini, featuring organic vodka, green tea and an edible orchid.
"It's for a good cause and we just wanted to participate in that," said Alison Bolstad, event coordinator for the downtown Phoenix restaurant. "If we were going to show people the importance of saving the environment, we thought we'd just add something to go along with it."
Bolstad said the response has been encouraging and that they are still accepting reservations for their Earth Hour dinner.
While officials in Australia said their energy use during Earth Hour 2007 decreased as much as 10 percent, organizers don't expect this year's event to make a major difference in climate change. Earth Hour is mainly symbolic, Aum said.
"It's a big issue that transcends race and religion and all the things that connect and divide us," she said. "We don't want Earth Hour to end at 9. We want it to continue to the next year."
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