From music writer Peter Cooper:

It’s almost Earth Hour. Which is different from Earth Day, in case anyone mistakenly figured the economic downturn had resulted in a reduction of some sort. Au contraire. Earth Hour is an additional hour to think about the earth, and that hour is 8:30-9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 28. Mayor Karl Dean and singer-songwriter Jo Dee Messina are the public faces for Nashville’s Earth Hour, and they’re asking Nashvillians to turn off all non-essential lights for that hour. The city’s skyline will go dark as well, and the whole deal is intended to make what Mayor Dean calls “a positive statement about climate control.”

Follow up:

Jo Dee, the “Celebrity Spokeswoman” for Nashville’s Earth Hour, will perform on the Sommet Center Plaza stage Saturday evening, as soon as the Predators game (5 p.m. start time, by the way) is over. And then, at 8:30 p.m., Jo Dee and the mayor will turn off the city’s lights. There’s no charge for the concert/event. Jo Dee’s Web site is also “going dark” for the whole day on Saturday. Fans who log onto www.jodeemessina.com will see a small statement about her Earth Hour involvement, and they’ll hear current single “Shine” (irony alert), but they won’t see the rest of what they’d usually see, which includes a photo of Jo Dee reclining on a couch and another of Jo Dee with a Valentine candy in her teeth. “Earth Hour reminds everyone that if we all put in a little effort, we can achieve big results,” Jo Dee says.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, more than 1,000 cities in 80 countries will go dark in March, in celebration of Earth Hour. And when summer comes around, Los Angeles is again expected to participate in its absolutely unaffiliated rolling blackouts program.
Plenty of other celebrities — Lady Antebellum, Nanci Griffith, Dierks Bentley, SHeDAISY, Wynonna and Ashley Judd, Michael Nouri, Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Big Kenny, Jars of Clay, Kathy Mattea and Terri Clark — are also supporting the Earth Hour deal.
In between Earth Hour and Earth Day (April 22), Jo Dee will play the Grand Ole Opry on April 11.