Canadians embrace darkness as millions around world mark Earth Hour
By Colin Perkel, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO - Canadians across the country embraced powerlessness Saturday, dining by candlelight, counting stars or swaying in the dark to acoustic music as they marked the country's first Earth Hour.
At eight p.m. local time, enthusiastic participants turned off lights and appliances for the 60-minute event that swept around the globe in what was possibly the world's largest voluntary power outage since the invention of the incandescent bulb.
So many people did their part in Ontario, that demand for power fell by 900 megawatts during the hour - a drop of just over five per cent.
"Canada is a leader in this," Mike Russill, head of World Wildlife Fund Canada, told a crowd of thousands who jammed a downtown Toronto square for the hour. "Climate change is the biggest threat to this planet and your individual actions count."
The fund's initiative, aimed at raising awareness of the link between energy consumption and climate change, began last year in a single community - Sydney, Australia.
This year, much to the stunned delight of the organizers, dozens of countries around the world rallied to the cause with gusto, and nowhere more so than in Canada.
"It's a great step in the right direction, but we need more," said Laura Thorne, as she cradled a candle in chilly dark in downtown Toronto. "We need Earth Year - Earth Millennium."
About 100,000 Canadians out of a total of 300,000 people worldwide registered online for the event - putting the country among top participants anywhere.
But organizers said they represented just the tip of an iceberg that surfaced for the hour itself, sinking those cynics who argued the event was just a publicity stunt that would do little to combat global warming.
Small towns and hamlets marked the occasion, along with big centres such as Toronto, where the CN Tower became one of many world landmarks - from Rome's Colosseum to the Sydney Opera House - to douse the lights.
Demand for power in Canada's largest city fell 8.7 per cent.
Outside a darkened Toronto City Hall, Nelly Furtado headlined a free acoustic concert, singing her hit song "Turn out the Light" as some among the thousands in attendance burned candles.
"Literally millions and millions and millions of people (are) turning off their lights tonight to help save our planet," Mayor David Miller told the crowd.
"That tells me that all it takes is one person with the right idea and a vision and being a leader. I want to ask all of you one thing tonight: Be that leader."
In Montreal, even the bulbs on the cross atop Mont Royal went out in what city councillor Alan DeSousa called a "strong symbolic message" he hoped would prompt residents "to take the time to stop, to think, to talk, to discuss" issues such as pollution and global warming.
"That's how you change . . . human behaviour," DeSousa said.
In some other Canadian cities, however, the impact of Earth Hour was more difficult to detect.
In Calgary, only one or two restaurants and coffee shops turned out the lights in favour of tabletop candles.
The downtown sky looked like any other night, with many lights on in many skyscrapers populated by Canada's largest banks and oil companies.
And with a heated match-up between the Calgary Flames and rival Edmonton Oilers in town, it was all lights and action on the popular 17th Avenue strip known as the "Red Mile" as the NHL playoffs loom.
While Earth Hour officials hoped 100 million people worldwide would turn off unneeded lights and electronic goods for the hour, actual numbers of participants were impossible to come by.
What is known is that events took place in more than two dozen major cities and numerous smaller communities - about 150 of them in Canada.
"What's amazing is that it's transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea," said Andy Ridley, executive director of Earth Hoir/"It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody."
However, one man in Toronto was glad to take in the free concert, but wasn't buying into the Earth Hour notion:
"I don't think climate change is an issue," said Ben Weld. "It's just the planet evolves in cycles."
In all, about 4,000 Canadian businesses, including hotels, stores and restaurants, signed on to take part.
Even Internet giant Google lent its support by changing its familiar search-engine home page to black.
"We've turned the lights out," a line on the home page said. "Now it's your turn - Earth Hour."
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/...129876-cp.html 
This is a shot from the CN Tower. The first at 7:40 pm, the second at 8:08 pm. THANK YOU TORONTO!
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5% is amazing, but next year lets get to 10%!