The Red, White, and Green

The Golden Gate Bridge on Friday, March 26. Lights on the bridge and other major monuments across the US will be turned off for one hour on March 27 at 8:30 pm for Earth Hour, a global campaign sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund. Photo: John Storey.

Update at 3:20 pm ET: The World Wildlife Fund is announcing that Earth Hour will officially be observed in all 50 states. Still, the lights at the governors’ residences and/or state capitol buildings will only go dark in 33 of them — the majority of those being in states with Democratic governors. Republican-governed states Florida and Utah have now joined in, as have the Democratic-governed Kansas and North Carolina. The chart below has been updated to reflect this.

Tomorrow night, at 8:30 pm local time, nearly a billion people around the globe will turn off their lights for an entire hour — Earth Hour — in a show of solidarity for action on climate change. The good news? A record 118 countries will officially go dark this year for the event, along with thousands of cities and iconic landmarks from the Pyramids of Giza to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The bad news? The issue of global warming has become so politicized in the United States that even the states participating in Earth Hour are split along party lines: Of the 29 33 states taking part agreeing to turn off the lights at governors’ residences and/or state capitol buildings, 23 25 have Democratic governors. Among the remaining six eight with Republican governors, five six are liberal-leaning; only one  — Georgia — was a “red” state only two — Georgia and Utah — were “red” states in the 2008 presidential election.

The gap is even more apparent when you consider that of the remaining 21 17 states that have chosen not to participate in Earth Hour 2010, 18 all but one have Republican governors.

Here’s the breakdown:

This has got to change. The number of Americans who doubt the existence of global warming has markedly increased over the last decade (from 19 percent in 1997 to 35 percent in 2010), and much of that is due to the influence of the Republican party. But by allowing the issue of climate change to become increasingly politicized — dividing ourselves into believers vs. nonbelievers — we’re missing the opportunity to take action on the myriad other environmental challenges that I think most Americans can agree on: developing our own clean energy economy to create jobs and lessen our reliance on foreign oil; reducing the use of toxic pesticides in our food supply; and preserving our beautiful natural spaces for future generations.

Democrats or Republicans, we are all citizens of this country; we are all citizens of this planet. Turn your lights off tomorrow night for that, if for nothing else.

–Jennifer Grayson

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