Earth Hour begins at 8:30 tonight and ends at 9:30pm. To participate, all you have to do is turn out all the lights in your house at 8:30pm for one hour. You can still use your electricity, just no lights.

EarthHour.org has been encouraging the world to send a message in this way since 2007. It started in Sydney when 2.2 million homes and businesses chose to spend an hour in darkness. In 2008 the message went worldwide, and 50 million people participated. Look outside your window during this time tonight and you will see lights out at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Colosseum in Rome, the Opera House in Sydney and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square.

This year the organization is asking us to Vote Earth. They consider it the world’s first global election, a choice between Earth and global warming. What will you choose?

All you need to participate is a flip of a switch. Lights out for one hour and you are done. Don’t be surprised to see lights out at your neighbor’s house too – and if you don’t, perhaps you should walk over there right now and ask them send in their vote: Switch off for Earth.

The website has a great deal of information and many other suggestions on how to participate including taking photos for the Earth Hour flickr group, uploading a video to YouTube, writing a live Blog Post and even updating Twitter.

San Jose MetBlogs is participating; we hope you do too!