About Lights Out Santa Barbara

Background

Lights Out Santa Barbara is a city and county-wide energy conservation event on October 20, 2007. On this night, we invite the entire city of Santa Barbara to turn off all non-essential lighting for one hour. To promote long-lasting energy saving, we ask that everyone install at least one compact fluorescent light bulb.

You may ask: what good does one hour and one light bulb do? What do we hope we all will accomplish?

Our area's, our city's growing appetite for energy must be controlled to protect our planet from the effects of the climate crisis. We estimate that turning lights out for even one hour in our city could save as much as 15 percent of the energy consumed on an average Saturday night. The on-going benefits of installing CFLs in your house are also significant.

This savings will reduce carbon emissions into our air, preserve the natural resources used to produce this energy, set a positive precedent for the rest of the nation, and result in ongoing reduced costs for the city, taxpayers, and businesses.

We're asking people of Santa Barbara to join together that night throughout the city and the county to watch the lights go out. We hope Lights Out Santa Barbara will be a recurring event and part of a wider effort to promote energy-saving consciousness throughout the country.

We were inspired by a similar event recently held in Sydney, Australia, called Earth Hour. In Sydney, 2.2 million people participated. Their one hour of lights out meant an approximately 10 percent reduction in energy usage, or about 24.86 tons of carbon dioxide that were not released into the air - the equivalent of taking 48,613 cars off the road for one hour.

Of course, we'd hope for the same or better here, differing sizes of the cities taken into consideration. Unfortunately, a representative of SCE, supportive of Lights Outs SB, has indicated to us that SCE will not monitor the amount of reduction here.

Similar Lights Out efforts are underway in San Francisco and in Los Angeles, also for October 20th, and if PG&E does monitor we'll post those results.

Thus far, Lights Out San Francisco, the initiator, has received a tremendous amount of support and very positive responses to their efforts. People in cities across the country, as we did in Santa Barbara, and even from around the world, have contacted them in hopes of organizing Lights Out events in their own towns. Our hope is that the October 20th events will lay the groundwork necessary to implement an annual national lights out effort beginning in March of 2008. Lights Out America is a countrywide energy conservation event planned for Saturday, March 29, 2008. If you're interested in facilitating participation in your city, please email info@lightsoutamerica.org.

How can you get involved? We're glad you asked. Your support is critical to making Lights Out Santa Barbara a success. First and foremost, be conscious of your own electricity usage and ask yourself what more you can do.

If you are interested in volunteering or helping us, email us at info @ lightsoutSB.org.

Also, help us spread the news by telling a friend. Watch this Web site for periodic event updates, or view our blog. Of course, we will not share personal information with any third parties. Read our privacy policy.

Many thanks!