Choking On Smog, Hong Kong Refuses Call To Cut Lighting, Pollution

[hatrack]

HONG KONG - Hong Kong responded without much enthusiasm on Tuesday to a call by environmentalists to turn off lights for a few minutes to highlight air pollution in the city.

Few turned off their lights at the scheduled 8 p.m. (1200 GMT), and much of the city's high rise towers and busy harbourfronts remained lit up as they usually are. "There was a bit of a dim," said organiser Alastair Robins, who watched the scene from Victoria Peak - Hong Kong island's highest point. "It wasn't great, it wasn't what we were hoping for." Despite this, Robins said the campaign had raised awareness about Hong Kong's need to reduce energy usage - with the two local coal-based power companies regularly blamed as the city's worst polluters.

Public interest in the "Lights Out" campaign had seemingly grown in recent weeks, with residents saying they were growing more alarmed by chronic bad air and intrigued at the possibility of big-city Hong Kong being shrouded in a rare darkness - albeit briefly. "I thought, wow, wouldn't it be amazing from an artistic and protest side of things if you could persuade so many people as a mass action to turn out their lights," said Robins, an artist. "That would be the greatest work of art I've ever been involved in."

Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang had said the blackout would hurt Hong Kong's image as an international city, and disrupt a popular harbourfront lights extravaganza put on every night for tourists.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/37582/story.htm

[niallmac]

1. Hong Kong will show us the way; tragically or heroically.

It's their choice.