By Following the success of an energy awareness event held in Sydney Australia last year by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Earth Hour, has become a global event that spans six continents, in a bid to drop energy usage and increase awareness for climate change.
During the Earth Hour event, participants in cities across the world will turn off their lights for one hour between 8:00pm and 9:00pm local time.
At last year's event in Sydney, tens of thousands of homes and businesses turned off their lights and dropped energy usage by 10 percent.
In support of this upcoming event, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (News - Alert) is asking computer users to, "click on" the computer power management feature on their computers, and then "click off" (power down) their computers during the hour-long event.
Using power management features reduces wasted energy and lowers energy costs but automatically putting unused hard drives, monitors, and computers into "sleep" mode. This, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative notes, can save more than 600 KWh of electricity per year.
A study conducted by Harris Interactive (News - Alert) on behalf of Climate Savers Computing found that although most all PC's today support power management, only 74 percent of U.S. adults 18 and older, were aware of computer power management.
This year the WWF's Earth Hour event will take place Saturday, March 29.
Individuals can sign up to participate and make a commitment to reducing energy consumption in the year ahead at EarthHour.org.
Stefania Viscusi is an established writer and avid reader. To see more of her articles, please visit Stefania Viscusi’s columnist page.
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