Earth Hour in Auckland

As the first country in the world to mark Earth Hour on Saturday 27 March, it would have been a perfect opportunity for New Zealand to set an exemplary standard of participation. Sadly, I found Auckland's contribution a bit disappointing. Here's the crowd at Auckland's official event at Britomart:

For a city of over a million people, I think it's fair to say that there was a pretty low turnout. But, things may not be as disappointing as they seem. People might have chosen to participate in Earth Hour at home or with friends, rather than coming all the way into the centre of the city. Earth Hour did, after all, take place at 8.30 pm on a Saturday. WWF, the organisation behind Earth Hour, will carry out a poll to establish national participation, the results of which should come out in a couple of weeks.

It was cool to see Auckland's iconic Sky Tower switch its lights off for the hour, along with some of Auckland's other prominent high-rises, although there were plenty of lights still glowing on the skyline. But at the end of the day, it's not really about how many people spent their Saturday night sitting with candles on the Britomart lawn, or how many buildings turned off their lights for the hour. It's about how many people heard about Earth Hour, and thought about what they could do to reduce their energy consumption and their impact on the environment. Judging by how many billboards, TV commercials, banner ads on websites and stories in the media I saw, I'd say a lot of people.