London's Earth Hour Goes "Into Darkness"

Star Trek played an active role yesterday in the London portion of the World Wildlife Foundation’s international Earth Hour event, with quadrocopters forming the Federation logo in the darkened sky by Tower Bridge. Each year, WWF arranges for landmarks and cities to go dark for an hour in order to raise awareness about climate change. Paramount Pictures, with Star Trek Into Darkness due out in May, lent their support to this year’s Earth Hour event and tapped Ars Electronica Futurelab and Ascending Technologies to join with them to launch the quadrocopters 308 feet (or 94 metres) into the London sky both before and after the lights dimmed for an hour. Keeping with the Earth Hour theme, the quadrocopters utilized batteries that were charged in Austria using green energy from Austria’s renewable energy grid.

“WWF is delighted that Paramount is supporting this year’s Earth Hour event,” Kellie Rollings of the WWF said in a statement. “Millions of people around the world take part in Earth Hour year on year and we’re always looking for innovative ways to get our message out there.  It’s fantastic that Paramount has chosen to mark the hour by dimming their lights at this unusual light display.”

John Fletcher, Director of Marketing for Paramount Pictures UK, stated, “We are very pleased to go ‘into darkness’ with the rest of the world in support of Earth Hour.  It seems fitting to be associated with such a global cause.”