Some cities try going 'green' with blackouts

But a desire to do more is growing, both among businesses facing rising energy costs and policymakers responding to public concerns about global warming. A new poll from Yale University found that 62 percent of Americans believe life on earth faces major disruptions from climate change unless immediate and drastic action is taken.

Mr. Tyler hopes the Lights Out event will show that small, individual efforts can be collectively powerful and bring people together. He first stumbled on a similar event while traveling in Sydney, Australia. The one-hour event there cut out the release of 25 tons of carbon dioxide, comparable to taking 49,000 cars off the road for an hour.

"I was having dinner with my friend in the harbor there, and they started handing out candles, and we had this amazing candlelit dinner," he says. "It occurred to me, what a great mechanism to get people involved ...to save energy."

He put up a basic announcement on the Internet in April, and the idea spread fast. San Francisco's City Hall, the Chamber of Commerce, PG&E, and three corporate sponsors stepped up to help his staff of five.

Now, people are e-mailing from around the country wanting to help, prompting Tyler to move more quickly on plans for a nationwide Lights Out on March 29. Los Angeles city officials couldn't wait, and the city will be taking part on Saturday.

The San Francisco police say they aren't planning any special street presence despite snickers from some corners that darkened downtowns could be a crime magnet. Streetlights and other essential lights won't be turned off Saturday.

There's a danger that participants might get disappointed, notes Aaron Israel with the Bay Area chapter of the Sierra Club. "We applaud any efforts like [this] to be creative about our energy challenges," he says, but notes that turning off lights for an hour is "not a sustainable habit."

The Sierra Club is sponsoring its own climate challenge competition to see which households can reduce their electric bills the most in 30 days.

Still, the Lights Out event has put a twinkle in the eye of amateur astronomers, who expect they will be able to see the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye.

"You should be able to see the Milky Way – that in itself is just an incredible event from Lands End [in the city]," says Kenneth Frank with the Astronomical Association of Northern California. "I had heard in New York when they had the power outage, a lot of people looked up and [saw the Milky Way and] called the police department not understanding what they were seeing."

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