Tonight here in Phoenix, at 8 pm Mountain Standard Time, we were one of the four cities in the US that went dark for one hour to commemorate Earth Hour. Dubai, Melbourne, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv joined in too. Candle light dinners and waiters wearing glo-sticks were expected to compensate for the darkness. As Erin Zlomek of The Arizona Republic observed of the Chase ballpark, “Tonight, the well-known circular landmark melted into a sky of black.”

Another “landmark,” the white Google.com home page, turned black for that hour. Online, one Wikipedia editor whined that doing this for one hour was of no value. “Think of Earth every minute not just once a year for an hour! Take your bike, turn off lights whenever possible… There’s so much you can do every day!” Said the Googleplex: “we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event.”

Nice job, Phoenix.