为了鼓励市民节约能源，美国数个城市20日开展了“停电1小时”活动。停电活动从当地晚上8时开始，9时结束。加州三大城市——洛杉矶、旧金山和长滩也参加了该项活动。

Los Angeles, San Francisco and Long Beach residents are being urged to switch off their lights for one hour in the first such organized bid in the United States to promote energy saving. [Agencies]

专题推荐：词解十七大

Los Angeles, San Francisco and Long Beach residents are being urged to switch off their lights for one hour on Saturday in the first such organized bid in the United States to promote energy saving.

Much of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and Los Angeles International Airport will go dark between 8pm. and 9pm, apart from essential safety lighting. Lights in city buildings will be switched off and millions of residents in the three cities are being asked to follow suit.

The Lights Out campaign in California follows similar initiatives in Sydney, Australia; London, England; and Paris, France earlier this year. California organisers said they planned a nationwide US event in March 2009.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said that if all of its 1.4 million customers turned off their lights for an hour, enough energy could be saved to power 2500 homes for an entire year.

Electricity companies are urging people to replace at least one of the lights they switch back on with an energy-saving fluorescent light bulb.

California this year proposed what would have been the first US state ban on incandescent light bulbs. But the law was later shelved in favor of another that requires tight energy-efficient standards for new bulbs.

(Agencies)

Vocabulary:

fluorescent light bulb: 荧光灯泡

incandescent light bulbs：白炽灯泡

（英语点津 Celene 编辑）