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Crowds turn lights out on solstice

More than 130,000 people around the nation left their homes on Saturday evening to support a "Lights Out Day" campaign to mark the annual summer solstice in an eco-friendly way.

Many buildings in Taipei and other major cities also supported the drive by turning off their lights and neon signs for an hour between 8pm and 9pm in order to save energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

A spokesman for the Society of Wilderness (SOW), which organized the event, said this year’s “Lights Out Day” helped save approximately 280,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity while cutting 178 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

To help people discover, or rediscover, the pleasure and beauty of a night without lights, the SOW organized a series of outdoor activities at Taipei’s Daan Forest Park, Hsinchu City’s Dong Meng Circle and Tainan City’s Barclay Memorial Park, including unplugged concerts, star-gazing, storytelling, ecological excursions and dances.

At Daan Forest Park, many musicians, including the Aboriginal singer Kimbo Hu (胡德夫), performed an unplugged concert, drawing a large crowd of music fans and environmentally aware spectators.

A “low-carbon” wedding ceremony was held, in which the bride’s wedding gown was made from recycled plastic bags and paper.

The annual “Lights Out Day” event was initiated by the SOW in 2005 and is observed each year on the summer solstice, which marks the day when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer — which passes through Chiayi County — and also officially marks the first day of summer in Taiwan and most of the northern hemisphere.

This year, nine cities in Taiwan and several major cities in China, Japan and South Korea held “Lights Out Day” activities to make the summer solstice an energy-saving event, the SOW spokesman said.

In Taiwan, he said, the number of participants at this year’s activities increased by about 40 percent from last year.

A number of renowned Asian landmarks such as Taipei 101, HSBC’s Hong Kong headquarters building, Seoul Tower and Tokyo Tower all turned off their lights for one hour in support of the “Lights Out Day” campaign, the spokesman said.
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