Google's homepage is black for the users from United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and Denmark to promote Earth Hour, an event that encourages energy conservation. "On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. (...) Given our company's commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event," explains Google in a special page created for the event. Earth Hour started last year in Sydney, but this year many cities from all over the world joined the event.
The purpose of the black homepage is not to save energy, but to raise the awareness of the world's environmental problems. Most people will be surprised to see Google's homepage so radically different and will start to wonder if it's a good idea to imitate Google's blackout. Sometimes small actions make a difference, but in this case the key is elsewhere.
