TIM PRATT
The city of Starkville is joining a global environmental initiative this weekend by turning off all non-essential lights in city buildings and encouraging citizens to do the same at home.
The city plans to take part in Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund in 2007, which takes place Saturday from 8:30-9:30 p.m. City employees will turn off all non-essential lights in city buildings and adjust heating or air conditioning units to conserve energy, though they will do it at the end of the work day on Friday afternoon, Starkville Electric Department Manager Edd Hattaway said.
Cities, businesses and citizens all over the world will take part in the Earth Hour event. This is the first year the city of Starkville has officially participated, but a handful of businesses and about 100 Mississippi State University students turned off their lights last year, Green Starkville co-founder Nisreen Cain said.
Earth Hour began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned off their lights to make a stand against climate change. In 2008, Earth Hour became a global sustainability movement, with more than 50 million people in 35 countries participating. In 2009, more than 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off their lights.
Cain approached the Starkville Board of Aldermen earlier this month and asked for city officials to support the Earth Hour initiative. The board unanimously approved the city’s participation.
“Our city has been making great improvements towards sustainability over the past few years and this event puts us on the global map of cities making the switch into a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle,” Cain said. “We are asking people to switch off our lights to show their support and awareness of the significance and importance of the energy crisis and our dependence on non-renewable energy. It is a small action that is easy to do to show that each one of us is making a difference and that all of us together make a large impact.”
Hattaway said it is hard to tell how much energy will be saved when the city, local residents and businesses turn off their lights until he can compare the energy consumption this Saturday with the same date in previous years. Even then, it is unclear because weather conditions and, subsequently, heating and air conditioning use, vary from year to year.
Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.
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