Earth Hour: Seattle joins hour of darkness designed to wake up the world

It's going to be a little darker than usual tonight.

Lights illuminating the Space Needle, downtown high-rises and neighborhood homes could largely go dark from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. to mark Earth Hour, an international campaign against global warming.

Organizers with the World Wildlife Fund expect thousands of cities around the world to participate by switching off the lights on major buildings and landmarks, including the Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Eiffel Tower and Sydney Opera House.

In Washington state, Seattle, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Snoqualmie, Issaquah and several other cities are asking residents and businesses to turn off their lights for an hour.

Among the buildings and landmarks expected to go dark — or at least mostly dark — are the Washington Mutual Tower, Seattle Municipal Tower, the Space Needle and Pacific Science Center's arches.

"I think it's a symbolic thing," said Alex Fryer, a spokesman for Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. "It's just one more way of getting out a sense of urgency about climate change."

Earth Hour began three years ago in Sydney, Australia, when more than 2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for an hour. Last year it spread worldwide, and 50 million people participated. Organizers say they'd like to reach 1 billion people this year.

In downtown Seattle and Bellevue, most of the commercial buildings are expected to go dark, said John Chandler, chairman of the environmental-sustainability committee for the Building Owners and Managers Association of Seattle and King County. A number of building managers have circulated the word to tenants to turn lights off in their offices, he said.

Floors or blocks of rooms in large buildings often stay lit past usual business hours to let janitors clean hallways and offices, Chandler said. Most managers are seeking ways to save more energy, including shifting work hours for cleaning crews to earlier in the day, he said.

Many buildings downtown have automated lighting systems that can be programmed to turn off exterior and interior lights. For the minority of older buildings that still have manual lighting controls, tenants might choose not to come in on Saturday to turn off extra lights, Chandler said.

Washington Mutual Tower, prominent along Seattle's skyline, will shut off its outside tower lights and interior hallway lights tonight, and tenants are encouraged to turn off their office lights, said Pat Clark, vice president of property management at Wright Runstad & Company, a part owner and manager of the building.

The building manager plans to take energy-usage readings before and after the hour of darkness to see how much power was saved, Clark said.

Citywide, it would be hard to calculate how much energy is saved during Earth Hour, said Scott Thomsen, a spokesman for Seattle City Light. Other factors, such as the amount energy used for heating or cooling during that hour, could influence the readings and the utility wouldn't know which homes are participating, he said.

Some building managers said they expect energy savings in Seattle to be relatively small. Large office buildings already would be mostly dark on a Saturday night. But the event's organizers acknowledge this is foremost an awareness campaign to promote energy conservation as a way fight global warming.

Some hotels and restaurants are going an extra step to participate in Earth Hour. The Pan Pacific Seattle Hotel will invite guests to shut off or dim their room lights and gather in the candlelit lobby and bar. The hotel's hallways will be illuminated by battery-powered candles, and only safety and exit lights will stay on, said Sierra Trujillo, the hotel's executive assistant.

Glow-in-the-dark necklaces will be on hand.

"We're hoping to have a little fun with this," Trujillo said.

The Sierra Club's local chapter has organized a panel of speakers at REI's flagship store in Seattle just before Earth Hour. Beginning at 6:30 p.m., speakers will discuss light pollution and ways to reduce energy use.

Michelle Ma: 206-464-2303 or mma@seattletimes.com