Turn out. Take action.

Turn out. Take action. For World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour!

On March 31, 2007, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour - Earth Hour. This massive collective effort reduced Sydney's energy consumption
by 10.2% for one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for a year.

Now the movement is global...

Be part of this historic event. Tomorrow, Saturday March 28, 2009, 8:30 pm local time

World Wildlife Fund is asking individuals, businesses, governments and organizations around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – Earth Hour – to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate commitment to finding solutions.

In Indianapolis:

Green Piece Indy is hosting an Earth Hour celebration at South Bend Chocolate Cafe on Monument Circle from 7:30-9:30 p.m. Watch an Earth Hour countdown to 8:30 in front of the Indianapolis Power & Light building. Other businesses and individuals throughout Indianapolis are challenged to join IPL and South Bend Chocolate Cafe in going dark in support of this event

Source: earthhourus.org & Nuvo.net

We Seem To Be in Good Hands With New EPA Chief Lisa Jackson

Lisa Jackson has no small job ahead of her. As the new EPA administrator, she's charged with protecting public health and safeguarding the environment. One of her first initiatives is to follow up on a USA Today series that found hundreds of America's schools located dangerously close to toxic hot spots. Administrator Jackson talks with PRI's Living on Earth host Bruce Gellerman about testing the air that schoolchildren breathe, regulating carbon dioxide, and what she'd like to do with the EPA's proposed budget increase.

"(There is) more about the importance of restoring the American public's trust that EPA is first and foremost a science based organization. That we need to be a place where American's look to get answers and American's need to believe that those answers are based on the soundest science that we can possibly muster and without regard to politics, if you will. That the environment is clearly a nonpartisan, nonpolitical issue at its heart. People care about the places where they live and work. So we've talked a lot about making sure that agency scientists are – and their science – are respected and conversely, that they live up to awesome responsibility of being a voice for the environment and public health in this country.

Second, we talked about restoring the rule of law at this agency. I wouldn't call it lawless, but we've had some – a number of cases where our major regulatory actions, especially on air, have been overturned by the courts. And what's really disturbing there is that, in the mean time, a framework for protection of human health is undermined.

Finally, we've talked a lot about transparency and the importance of people being able to see inside this agency and feel assured that no individual stakeholder or special interest is making the agenda, that our agenda is governed by an open dialogue with all stake holders, environmental groups, industry advocates of all types, and then we move on based on science and the law. You know, this EPA, the Obama EPA is on the job, and all we can ask of the American people is that we be given an opportunity to earn their trust and to have them see us as a steward of the issues that they care about. That is our fundamental job here at EPA."