On Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 8:30 pm, I am taking part in Earth Hour-a global event in which millions of people will turn out their lights to make a statement of concern about our planet and climate change. I want to invite you to join, too! Sponsored by World Wildlife Fund, Earth Hour got started just two years ago and is now the largest event of its kind in the world. Last year, more than 50 million participated and the lights went out at the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and the Coliseum in Rome, just to name a few. Even Google’s homepage went black for the day! In Israel, President Shimon Peres personally turned off lights in Tel Aviv.

This year, Earth Hour will be even bigger-already 250 cities in 74 countries have agreed to take part including Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami and Nashville with more signing up every day. Around the world cities like Moscow, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai and Mexico City will turn out their lights.

But Earth Hour isn’t just for big cities-anyone can participate. To get a better sense of the event, check out this video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjWD8pbK5t8.

Participating in Earth Hour is easy, fun and free. I hope you will join me for this amazing event. To sign up, visit http://www.earthhourUS.org where you’ll learn more including ways you can spread the word about Earth Hour, plus creative things to do when the lights go out in case you need inspiration!

We want the US to turn out more lights than any other country in the world during this historic event so please pass this note along to anyone you think might want to take part. Let’s all turn out and take action on March 28 at 8:30 pm.

Well it is over now and things are starting to get back to normal after the winter ice storm left more than 400,000 people without power, including us for nearly a week, and more than 30 deaths. We were lucky to have a natural gas line that I was able to hook up a heater to; however, we had no worm water to shower with. Power went out for us around 9:00 pm Tuesday and didn’t come back on until almost noon that next Monday!