Fresh Loaf

For one hour on Saturday, more than 400 buildings in metro Atlanta — along with 1,500 cities in more than 80 countries — will shut off their lights to participate in Earth Hour, a worldwide event to raise awareness about the impact our energy usage has on global warming.

Many trademark buildings, including the Fox Theater and Midtown’s Bank of America building, will participate in the event. Organized by the World Wildlife Fund in cooperation with the City of Atlanta, tomorrow’s event marks the second year the city’s participated in Earth Hour. The lights will go dark from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.

For the best view of the darkened city skyline during Earth Hour, I recommend the Jackson Street bridge that stretches over Freedom Parkway. If you have some good suggestions, leave ‘em in the comments.

(Homepage photo courtesy Flickr user highsmith)

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Earth Hour, Saturday night’s voluntary power-down that covered cities around the world for 60 minutes of darkness, did reduce electricity usage. But only by a bit.

Georgia Power says:

ATLANTA – Georgia Power customers in Atlanta decreased their electricity usage by nearly 4 percent during Earth Hour on Saturday night, March 29. The average reduction during the hour was 7.05 megawatt-hours, or enough electricity to serve 1,750 homes.

The downtown Atlanta grid saw the 4 percent reduction at the midpoint of the 8-9 p.m. ET hour, when the majority of interior and external building lights were off.

The results were based on usage data from previous similar time frames.

That’s far less than the 10 percent reduction Sydney boasted during last year’s event. And this year, there’s an angry Aussie chap awesomely named “Andrew Bolt” who says the event was unsuccessful.

But hey, even if we didn’t have 60 minutes of energy-free bliss, the occasion gave many celebratory drinkers and people looking for a reason to party to turn off the lights and play beer pong by candlelight. And that, my friends, is what counts.

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The World Wildlife Fund has organized Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco as well as cities across the world to participate in its first global Earth Hour on March 29. For one hour at 8 p.m., major buildings and landmarks in participating cities will go dark to raise awareness about global warming and the impact our daily lives have on the environment. Essential lights, such as street lamps, will remain humming.

The list of participating businesses and landmarks in the city is long, and includes much of the city’s notable buildings such as the Bank of America Plaza and the Equitable Building. Other participants include AT&T headquarters, the Wachovia Building, 1180 Peachtree, Colony Square, Coca-Cola World Headquarters, Hyatt Regency, Turner Field, the Westin Peachtree Plaza and the Georgia Dome. (Full list of participants follows after the jump below.) Hell, even the Varsity is going dark.

Georgia Power will measure changes in the city’s energy consumption during the event and word is that NASA will be taking photos of the United States cities that have volunteered to switch off the lights. The WWF urges all residents and businesses to participate at home and turn off all non-essential lights to do their part and help raise awareness about global warming.

More than 2 million people and thousands of businesses participated in the organization’s first Earth Hour last year in Sydney, Australia. The WWF says power consumption dropped 10 percent during the event.

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