SYDNEY, Australia - Homes and businesses in Australia's largest city will switch off lights for an hour Saturday to protest excessive greenhouse gas emissions.
Iconic downtown landmarks including the Sydney Harbor Bridge and nearby Opera House will fade under the glow of an almost full moon and the ubiquitous golden arches of McDonald's restaurants will disappear.
Almost 2,000 businesses and 53,000 homes in this city of four million people have pledged to turn their lights off for an hour Saturday evening as a show of support for a goal to cut Sydney's greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent in the next 12 months, said the World Wild Fund for Nature, better known as WWF-Australia, which is organizing the "Earth Hour" event.
"If all the lights go down, it will look like 70, 80 years ago," WWF spokesman Andy Ridley said.
Across Sydney, people are making the most of the rare opportunity.
More than 250 people are booked to visit the city's observatory as stargazing enthusiasts use the darkened skies to look further into space.
Astronomy curator Nick Lomb said there should be vastly improved views of the planet Saturn, the constellation of Orion's Belt and the Southern Cross' fifth star - which has been almost lost from city skies in Australia.
He said some visitors were just as excited about the chance to see the Sydney skyline in darkness.
"It is a great symbolic demonstration that there is too much outdoor lights in major cities like Sydney," Lomb said.
Australia is ranked as the world's worst greenhouse gas emitter per capita due largely to its heavy reliance on coal-fired power stations.
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