So Earth Hour 2009 has come and gone, amidst much hype.

Hong Kong, 28 March at approximately 8.29pm (or could have been 13 February, 9.24pm for all I know)

Hong Kong, 28 March at approximately 8.31pm

In other news, came across some interesting facts and statistics if everyone in the US were to become vegetarian for just one day.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

• 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
• 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
• 70 million gallons of gas -- enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;
• 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;
• 33 tons of antibiotics

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:

• Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;
• 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;
• 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;
• Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant

Amazing, ain't it!

But I do see some drawbacks if an NGO were to implement a vegetarian equivalent of Earth Hour:

1. There are some people who just cannot give up their meat. By people, I mean mostly guys.
2. Even if Al Gore were to be an advocate, the word "vegetarian" is for some inexplicable reason too closely linked with Yoko Ono and tree-huggers. Aggressive tree-huggers.
3. Somehow, Vegetarian Day doesn't sound as catchy and cool as Earth Hour.

Till Earth Hour 2010! And Vegetarian Day 2056.

But if this is anything to go by, we'll all be dead by 2012 anyway. Sorry, was that too morbid?