Green Daily

As expected, support is ramping up for Earth Hour here in the week leading up to the big event, but few would have guessed where the strongest support would be coming from. Apparently, Canada is kicking serious butt when it comes to pledging to observe Earth Hour 2008 -- it's like they're taking it on as some kind of competitive sport. Last week they were the worldwide leaders with a total of 55,000 signed up. This week, the US is holding a narrow lead over the country with a 10th of its population.

Canada might be vying for the overall lead, but on a per capita basis, the leader is still Australia -- birthplace of the event -- with one in 1 in every 420 Australians signed up to participate. Canada is at 1 in 606 and Team USA is at a not very impressive 1 in 5,347, but there's still time.

The groundswell of interest is a great thing to be sure, but not necessarily one that WWF planners were prepared for. If you've tried to visit Earth Hour's official website in the last few days, you'll notice that it's terribly slow. In fact, the system has been crashing over the last week as organizers are trying to add serves to handle the traffic.

Will you be turning your lights off this Saturday? If so, you might as well try to sign up and represent -- winner gets eco-bragging rights. If that convince you, try watching this Jeremy Piven's ultra-serious promo video.