City of Fort Collins Announces it will Support Earth Hour 2009

Dated Press Release
NOTICE: This press release was released 240 days ago!
(Release Date: Mar-27-2009)

Ana Arias
Public Relations Coordinator
970-221-6264
email:

Join Tens of Millions in Turning Off Lights for Largest Climate Event in History

The City of Fort Collins announced that it will support Earth Hour 2009, a global climate awareness event. More than 240 cities around the world have already committed to go dark for one hour on Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 8:30 p.m. local time, as tens of millions of people from all corners of the world unite in a call for global action on climate change.

“I invite individuals, families and businesses in Fort Collins to recognize and support this tremendous local and global opportunity to participate in Earth Hour on March 28th at 8:30 pm, by turning out their lights and computers for an hour,” says City of Fort Collins Mayor Doug Hutchinson. “Let’s continue our City’s tradition of innovation and environmental leadership in climate protection by using that hour as a contemplative catalyst to further reduce our carbon footprint and conserve energy.” The Mayor will be presenting a Fort Collins “Earth Hour Day” proclamation to John Stokes, Director of the Natural Resources Department, on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, at 5:30 pm at City Hall.

The City has been proactive in energy conservation in its operations by completing a major lighting upgrade, which includes more efficient lighting and controls. In addition, the schedule of janitorial personnel has been changed to day-time hours from night-time to conserve energy. Since March 28th is a Saturday, staff will not be present in administrative offices.

City employees are encouraged to turn off their lighting and computing devices at home from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm on Saturday, March 28. Thanks to the generosity of Johnson Controls, Inc., Sun Industries, Inc., Voss Lighting and Philips Lighting, for each of the first 300 City employees who pledge to personally ‘power off’ on Earth Hour, a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) will be donated to the Housing Authority in appreciation.

Employees who pledge to participate will receive a wallet-size “Carbon Footprint Counter” that highlights estimates of the CO2 emitted through common activities. The counter was developed by The Sopris Foundation. If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an Energy Star qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

From Amman to Warsaw, city skylines will go dark for one hour as individuals, businesses, government buildings, schools and major landmarks turn off non-essential lighting in what will be the largest climate event in history. The list of participating cities in the US includes Fort Collins, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami and Nashville with more signing up every day.

During Earth Hour 2008, more than 50 million people in 400 cities on all seven continents turned off their lights as major icons also went dark, including the Sydney Opera House, the Coliseum in Rome, Stockholm’s Royal Castle, the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Google turned its homepage black for an entire day in tribute.

Children can learn more about climate change and what they can do to protect the planet’s resources by visiting http://www.earthhourkids.org