Tonight at 8:30pm local time, people around the world are turning off all non-essential lighting for 1 hour to show their collective support for solving the climate crisis.

The floodlit cream shells of the famed Opera House dimmed Saturday as Sydney became the world's first major city to plunge itself into darkness for the second worldwide Earth Hour, a global campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.

From the Great Pyramids to the Acropolis, the London Eye to the Las Vegas strip, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries planned to join in the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored event, a time zone-by-time zone plan to dim nonessential lights between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

In the meantime, many others are...well...not (h/t dday):

Tomorrow is something called Earth Hour. Take the official RedState Pledge:

I do solemnly swear that I will honor Earth Hour by turning on every light in my residence at 8:30 p.m. on March 28, 2009, for one hour. God said, "Let there be light." Who are we to argue?

Yeah, they want you to turn your lights off, but everybody knows darkness leads to crime.

Always classy, RedState.

Some amazing photos of some of the world's icons dimming their lights can be found HERE and check out Earth Hour's YouTube channel for some video people took.

You can connect with others online at EarthHour.org and see Earth Hour updates on Twitter by following @earthhour and searching #earthhour.

This update cracked me up:

TIP if you need to turn on 7 extra lights to hunt down some candles, #earthhour might not be for you

In a time when the president's climate change plan is already being derailed and watered down by other Democrats let alone the Republicans they're aligning with, turning off our lights for an hour to show that we give a shit even if many in Washington don't seem to, is the least we can do.

Update [2009-3-28 19:59:17 by Todd Beeton]:Here's one way to celebrate Earth Hour. Awesome. Somehow I don't think LA's Earth Hour events will be quite that cool.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will hit the switch to turn off the lights in the L.A. Live Plaza, Nokia Theatre and Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The symbolic move is similar to actions being taken around the world to turn off nonessential lights between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m.

Other buildings that will go dark include Los Angeles City Hall, the Santa Monica Pier Ferris wheel, Capitol Records building, The Getty Museum, Griffith Observatory and Vincent Thomas Bridge. In Los Angeles, 75 restaurants will serve diners by candlelight.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles International Airport's Gateway Pylons will be lit green from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., before being turned off for Earth Hour.

Update [2009-3-28 20:42:47 by Todd Beeton]:Discovery Channel slideshow of Earth Hours around the world.

Update [2009-3-28 21:4:1 by Todd Beeton]:Behold the anti-earth hour movement! Yep, still the party of "no."

Update [2009-3-28 21:24:47 by Todd Beeton]:Holy crap. Organizers estimate 1 billion people will have participated in Earth Hour.

Update [2009-3-28 23:28:20 by Todd Beeton]:...and lights out.