Google Israel Goes Black to Support 'Earth Hour'

Google Israel is using a black theme to support the Earth Hour charity to raise awareness of energy conservation. Google will turn dark in Israel today and urges Israelis to turn off their power for one hour from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

If you visit the Google Israel site, you will see a dark theme. Since many Israeli’s are not aware of the “Earth Hour” charity, Google has added a small note so they won’t get confused about the sudden change. The notice said: Google users in Israel will notice today that we “turned the lights out” on the Google.co.il homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour.

On Thursday, March 27, 2008, Earth Hour invites people in Israel to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm.

Given our company’s commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event. Google in the U.S. also went out black last October in support of “Lights Out San Francisco” campaign and invited users to put at least on one CFL bulb and cut power off for one hour in the night. But others asked them why Google doesn’t do this permanently like Blackle.com, which has a dark background. Google said studies have shown “displaying a black background may actually increase energy usage. Earth Hour in other parts of the world is on March 29 at 8 pm. San Francisco city will be running this campaign on that day. Google is doing this just to raise awareness. If you are really concerned you can take advantage of more daylight during the day and limit electricity when it is not necessary.