Calistoga plans ‘Lights Out’ Saturday

By JOHN WATERS Jr.
Weekly Calistogan

With the annual observations of Earth Day just around the corner, two events are being planned to get Calistoga involved in a push toward planet sustainability.

Today Calistoga will go dark for an hour during “Lights Out Calistoga,” sponsored by the Calistoga Chamber of Commerce. Between 8 and 9 p.m., Calistoga residents will join millions of people worldwide to turn off all non-essential lights for one hour to reduce energy consumption and raise global awareness about the need for action on global warming.

“It’s a fun, simple event, and the restaurants loved the idea of hosting candlelight dinners to make it special,” said Eden Umble, Calistoga Chamber of Commerce special events coordinator.

The candlelight dinners are a simple — and romantic — way to save energy.

The hour-long blackout is called Earth Hour. It’s a global event that started as a local event in Sydney, Australia, last year, and a similar event was conducted in October with “Lights Out San Francisco.”

According to the www.light soutamerica.org Web site, some of the world’s major cities, including Copenhagen, Toronto, Chicago, Melbourne, Brisbane and Tel Aviv will unite and switch off for Earth Hour.

The city of Napa is not among them, but some locals will be participating. In a letter to the Register earlier this week, Silverado Middle School student Niko Baila asked, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if all of Napa just turned all of their lights off? It would even be better if the whole world turned off all their lights. I think it would be terrific if astronauts in outer space were performing an experiment, and when they looked at their earth, it just disappeared right in front of their eyes.”

Earth Day

Organizers are uniting to make this year’s Earth Day observation something special in Calistoga. Tony Albright of Albright Printing, Lydia Ruiz of Resource Green and event coordinator Kate Stanley are organizing an Earth Day Celebration on April 26, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Myrtle Street, opposite the Calistoga Library.

Calistoga’s Earth Day will include tastes of organically grown food, information on green living and energy conservation, children’s activities, music and a trash clean-up, according to Ruiz, who broke the news to the Calistoga City Council on Tuesday.

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