The City of Evanston joined the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Eiffel Tower by shutting off the lights for one hour Saturday night. People around the world flipped the switch for Earth Hour, an annual event that promotes awareness of climate change by encouraging everyone to turn off their lights from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time.

The Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave., Evanston’s four community centers and three libraries all went dark, City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz said. The police station and five fire stations also were asked to shut off as many internal lights as possible without compromising public safety.

“We want to do whatever we can to draw attention to the issues associated with climate change,” Bobkiewicz said.

Earth Hour began in 2007 when approximately 2.2 million people in Sydney, Australia turned off the lights. Since then, it has become a global phenomenon that reached 4,100 cities in nearly 90 countries last year, according to the Earth Hour Web site.

Last year the city publicized the event but didn’t participate, said Carolyn Collopy, program coordinator for the Office of Sustainability. This year the city advertised the event on its Web site and Facebook and Twitter accounts in addition to participating.

“The city did a good job (advertising) internally as well as externally,” said Karen Taira, program coordinator for the Evanston Ecology Center.

Evanston resident Linda Karn, 55, said she heard about the event through the city’s Facebook updates and was able to participate in part of Earth Hour after coming back from a family event.

“We didn’t get home until a little after nine, but we made sure all the lights were off in the house, and we brought our flashlights so that when we came home we could make our way into the house,” Karn said.

The city participated as part of an ongoing effort to improve sustainability, Bobkiewicz said.

“We’re very proud to be a very small part of what was a global event,” he said.

– Brittney Wong