Earth Hour

Earth Hour is an annual event to promote reduced energy consumption for the planet Earth by turning off non-essential lights for one hour from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on the last Saturday in March. It was first organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as a lights-off event in Sydney, Australia in 2007. Since then, 7,000 cities, 1,200 landmarks and 172 countries and territories have joined the action to raise the awareness of climate change.

Postcard US-1630412 to the Netherlands shows New York-New York Hotel & Casino before and during Earth Hour in Las Vegas on March 26, 2011. It features a quote from a Senegalese forestry engineer Baba Dioum: "In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." Sent before and received on Earth Day, April 22, 2012, it also highlighted the theme for Earth Day 2012: Mobilize the Earth.

For Earth Hour 2015 on Saturday, March 28, Las Vegas City Hall and the properties from MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and Boyd Gaming all dimmed their exterior lighting, signage and marquees from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. In addition to dimming the lights, Venetian and Palazzo had put on a candlelight display at Doge's Palace Plaza in front of Venetian.

Candlelight display for Earth Hour 2015 at Venetian with Mirage dimming its lights in the background.

Earth Hour 2016 will be on Saturday, March 26, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time.

International Tiger Day

Today is International Tiger Day, an annual celebration on July 29 to raise awareness for tiger conservation. It started in 2010 at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit in Russia. The most recent estimate shows only 3,200 tigers still in the wild, including 500 Siberian tigers. 95% of the total population have disappeared in the past 100 years; three subspecies: Bali , Caspian and Javan, have already been extinct by 1940s, 1970s, and 1970s respectively.

Habitat loss has been a direct contributor for the tiger population decline. Tigers lost 93% of their natural habitat due to human activities including deforestation, urbanization, and agricultural expansion. Climate change is also a factor as rising sea levels threaten to wipe out the last remaining habitat of Bengal tigers in the Sundarbans, a large mangrove forest area between India and Bangladesh on the northern coast of the Indian Ocean. Therefore, It is ultimate important to protect the natural habitats of tigers for tiger conservation to be successful.

USPS issued the Save Vanishing Species stamp featuring a tiger cub on September 20, 2011, with its net proceeds from sale benefiting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Multinational Species Conservation Funds. The Funds in turn supports efforts by numerous conservation organizations, including WWF which implements conservation projects such as surveying tigers and their prey in Nepal.

The featured postcard was sent from Connecticut as US-2140597.

Daylight Saving Time Ends in 2013

Daylight saving time (DST) ends today in the morning at 2:00 am. Following the expression Spring Forward, Fall Back, we set clocks back one hour, saying good bye to DST and entering Standard Time. DST returns next year on March 9, 2014.

Most areas of the United States currently observe DST. However, most areas of Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation, a Native American Reservation), along with Hawaii and the overseas territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands, do not observe DST. Arizona opted out the DST in 1968 largely in part because of Phoenix and Tucson being among the hottest US metropolitan areas in the summer. Extending daylight hours results in more people being active, thus more power usage from air conditioning units and cooling systems in homes and businesses.

Postcard US-2248458 to Tucson, Arizona showing Hoover Dam with Arizona side in the foreground and Nevada side in the background, as the state boundary runs across the dam. Since Arizona is in the Mountain Time Zone (GMT-7) whereas Nevada is in the Pacific Time Zone (GMT-8), Arizona is one hour ahead. However, because Nevada observes DST while Arizona does not, during the summer the clocks on the intake towers will show the same time. During the winter, the clock on the Nevada side will be one hour behind from the one on the Arizona side.

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