Hourlong ‘lights out’ to be observed worldwide

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 17, 2009

DRI and its GreenPower program, which educates Nevada’s K-12 youth on energy conservation, renewable energy, and sustainability, will join millions of people worldwide in Earth Hour – the world’s largest global climate-change event. Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, Earth Hour will be marked by people around the world turning off all non-essential lighting for one hour.

DRI’s Las Vegas campus on East Flamingo Road will join other Las Vegas participants in Earth Hour’s organized and collaborative sustainability movement. A flagship city for 2009, Las Vegas will be one of 1,189 cities in 80 countries committed to going dark for an hour.

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes turned off their lights for one hour. Within a year, the event had gone global, with more than 50 million people in 370 cities around the world taking part as the lights dimmed at iconic landmarks such as Sydney’s Opera House, Rome’s Coliseum, the Empire State Building, and the Golden Gate Bridge. For further information, visit www.earthhourlv.org.

To learn more about DRI’s GreenPower program, visit http://greenpower.dri.edu.

###