Why you should switch off your lights for Earth Hour (infographic)

23 Mar 2013

At 8.30pm today, many people, organisations and landmarks around the world will observe Earth Hour by turning off their lights for an hour to raise awareness of the need to fight climate change. But just how much potential impact does turning power off for 60 minutes have on energy use? An infographic takes a look.

The infographic by Jones Oil puts numbers into perspective. For example, humanity consumes 62,000 terajoules of energy per hour, which is the equivalent of using enough oil every hour to fill the Empire State Building in Manhattan four times over.

However, if lights were turned off for an hour every day, and the resulting money saved used to build hydroelectric dams, we would have enough renewable energy to meet our global electricity demands in as little as 250 days.

Earth Hour

Tina Costanza was a journalist and sub-editor at Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com