2009 is the largest Earth Hour yet. With 84 countries and over 2800 locales registering their participation, it is an unprecedented global event to promote the issues surrounding climate change.
Members of our Australian team have coordinated an effort across Google to help Earth Hour create a social network called Earth Connect.
Earth Connect uses Google Friend Connect, and is built using OpenSocial as a foundation for the site, which allows anyone with an OpenID to sign in and become a member of the network. A Blogger-based blog is used to drive Earth Connect's "Talking Points", using the BuzzBoost feature of FeedBurner to provide text, pictures and videos. The "Talking Points" in turn encourage Earth Connect members to post their thoughts in the Friend Connect-based Comments Gadget, which is where the real magic happens...
The comments collected by Earth Connect will be counted by WWF towards the goal of collecting a billion words in the lead-up to the next United Nations Climate Change Summit, COP15, to be held in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. The Earth Hour team will present this global collective statement of support as a call to action on climate change issues at COP15.
In this way, the Earth Hour movement will be sustained well beyond the March 28 event, providing a platform for the people of the world to share and contribute their thoughts on climate change.
The Earth Hour website, earthhour.org, is being hosted by Google App Engine, and the site is using Google Maps and YouTube to show all of the participating cities and towns. Google Translate is also embedded on the website to allow anyone in the world to access all of the information in their local language.
Andy Ridley, Global Executive Director of Earth Hour says: "One of the most inspiring aspects of working on Earth Hour is the way it has evolved - it has truly been built through the efforts and imagination of people who just want to see it work.
"We hope that on Saturday March 28 at 8:30pm local time, millions of people around the world will join us for Earth Hour. Beyond that, we look forward to building the world's largest environmentally-focused social networking platform."
Please join Earth Connect, subscribe to email updates, check out the Official Google Blog for more ways in which Google is helping to support a greener future, and watch this space as more is yet to come. Here's to a greener, cleaner future!
