The Pan Pacific Goes Dark for Earth Hour

Posted on March 28, 2010 in Events

On Saturday evening, Vancouver went dark to support Earth Hour – An annual global event hosted by the Word Wildlife Fund to encourage energy conservation.

Downtown VancouverPhoto: Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

Between 8:30 and 9:30pm, millions of people around the world switched off their lights in an effort to raise awareness for global warming and energy conservation.

Vancouver, which aspires to be the greenest city in the world, also played its part in the event with local landmarks using only essential lighting.  Included was: Vancouver City Hall, GM Place, Lions Gate Bridge and the iconic sails at Vancouver’s Canada Place.

The Pan Pacific Vancouver also proudly supported the annual initiative by switching off many of its lights in the lobby, restaurants and other public areas.

BC Hydro says the province’s electricity load dropped by 1.04 per cent between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m, amounting to 64.6 megawatt hours of electricity.

David Helliwell of Pulse Energy added, “If everyone in the world reduced their consumption by 43 per cent for an hour every day for a year, we could take the Canada Line to the sun and back 421 times!”