Nuage Vert 24 Nov 2008

In February this year, the city of Helsinki asked 4,000 residents and five major corporations to participate in an "unplug" event - an event that invovled disconnecting all electrical items that weren't in use. The city then demonstrated the resulting energy savings (in real-time) via a light installation called "Nuage Vert" ("Green Cloud") that represented actual energy consumption as a green cloud emanating from one of Helsinki's coal burning power plants. As power usage fell, the cloud increased in size so as to illustrate how much could be achieved if citizens continued to adopt such simple energy saving measures.

(As others have pointed out, making the cloud bigger as people consume less energy seems a bit strange - shouldn't the cloud get smaller so as to indicate a reduction in pollution? However, it is reported that the installation was extremely effective in raising public awareness about green issues and it scooped the 2008 Ars Electronica Golden Nica award to boot - so it seems churlish to pick too many faults with the concept.)