Chicago skyline lights dim as flagship U.S. Earth Hour city

Lights illuminating the Sears Tower's famous antennas flicked off. The red and white marquee outside Wrigley Field went dark. The stripe of white light around the top of the John Hancock Center disappeared.

Lights on more than 200 downtown Chicago buildings along with the state Capitol dome in Springfield were dimmed Saturday night as part of a worldwide campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.

The environmental group WWF asked governments, businesses and households across the world to turn off non-essential lights as part of Earth Hour. Chicago, with its reputation for environmentally friendly efforts, is the flagship Earth Hour city in the United States and was the first American city to sign on for this year.

Staff at the Signature Room at the 95th floor of the Hancock building dimmed lights in the posh restaurant that overlooks Lake Michigan and the city's Magnificent Mile.

Electricity demand fell by 5 percent in Chicago and northern Illinois during Earth Hour, the utility ComEd said in a news release, reducing about 840,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.

Richard Moss, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the climate change vice president for WWF, said in Chicago on Saturday that he hopes people realize one small effort made by many can make a difference.

"There's a widespread belief that somehow people in the United States don't understand that this is a problem that we're lazy and wedded to our lifestyles," Moss said. "(Earth Hour) demonstrates that that is wrong."

The United States emits a fifth of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, Moss said, with just 5 percent of the world's population.

"While citizens acting in this fashion can get us started, that's not sufficient to solve the problem," Moss said. "We really need the government to step in."

Earth Hour officials said 1,400 businesses, retailers, restaurants, hotels and schools were to participate in Chicago.

Karen Hobbs, first deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of the Environment, said Saturday that while Earth Hour is largely symbolic, it can remind citizens about making green decisions on a daily basis.

"What's really critical is what people do tomorrow and when Earth Hour is over and the change people make," Hobbs said. "All the little things in life that can make a big difference."

Elsewhere in Illinois, buildings in Bloomington and Normal were to participate as well, with lights to be dimmed at local museums, colleges and business headquarters.