 Sydney's famous skyline (top image) was shrouded in darkness |
"At 1930 (0930 GMT) the city's skyline dimmed and normally bright landmarks like the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge went dark.
The so-called Earth Hour is supported by the New South Wales government, environmental groups and businesses.
Sydney hopes the event will make a very big statement on climate change.
The city of four million people is aiming to become the first anywhere to achieve a blackout on this scale.
The BBC's Phil Mercer, in Sydney, says by and large Sydney had never been this dark.
He says lights were off in the majority of the central business district's office blocks and large parts of the suburbs were also in darkness.
Co-operation
Greg Bourne of environmental group WWF, one of the driving forces behind Earth Hour, said the big switch off took months to plan.
"The logistics is really quite amazing in the sense every tower block is owned by one company, maybe leased by another company, have 10 tenants in and a manager and working through all of these people has been fantastic."
Many restaurants signed up and planned to serve diners by candlelight.
The owner of the Newtown Hotel, which says it is Australia's oldest gay bar, told the BBC before the blackout that they would have fun while trying to send a serious message.
"Sometimes drag queens [female impersonators] do look better in the dark anyway," said Roger Zee.
"It's up to the patrons. They'll actually have their own torches so they'll be able to light up the drag queens on the stage themselves."
Organisers want to encourage Australians to conserve energy and to think carefully about what they can do to cut pollution.
Every day millions of lights and computers are left on in deserted office blocks as well as in apartments and houses.
Campaigners have said that simply switching them off could reduce Sydney's greenhouse gas emissions by 5% over the next year.
Australia is one of the world's largest per capita producers of carbon dioxide and other gases that many scientists believe are helping to warm the earth's atmosphere..."
During the middle ages when Europe cut many a forest to the ground in search of energy sources, it wasn't unusual for a diary entry to record the fact that the day was dark and dreary, as usual, because of all the wood fires burning. So of course the idiot restaurateurs lit many a candle when the bulbs dimmed (in more ways than one), and I wouldn't be surprised to see MORE unburned hydrocarbons being introduced to the atmosphere as one wackjob nation or another has a hand at saving the solar system.
The global warming scam is just that, but Australia is one helluva weird place and the citizens enjoy bandwagon jumping as much or more so than any other group of people I've ever met, so look for more abject nonsense from down under.
And please now. Sydney's "famous" skyline? The same skyline the population laughs about because of the clamshell opera house and the coat-hanger bridge? Sorry, but the word the writer was looking for was "infamous".
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