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[quote user="selector"] I hope I won't be seen as a contributor to the demise of a good discussion, but this Earth Hour thing....what's up with that?  What change of behaviour does it promise for the last workaholic on a Saturday to turn out the lights when she leaves?  All of them, this time?  If they had turned down 40% of their usage during the first four hours of the working day, and found a way to make do, that would have been a meaningful exercise.  Saturday night, when all the suburban bar-b-ques are fired up....gee...I dunno.It's like that diet programme that sells you their own brand of chocolate bars and shakes.  Where's the change of behaviour, including thinking?  You mean, I can still have all the chocolate bars I want, as long as I pay exhorbitant prices for your own particular kind?  Cool!  And you said shakes, too?  Man, I'm in heaven.  I want a tray of 'em.Why not all night...why just an hour?[/quote]I have a couple of thoughts about the Earth Hour.  The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has defined the problem of climate change and its very specific remedy, and that remedy calls for extreme sacrifice in our lifestyles.   Meanwhile most of the political class, news media, and pop culture are spreading the word that we can solve the problem by doing things such as providing our own grocery bags, switching light bulbs, keeping our tires inflated, using less air conditioning, and a whole lot of other diddly little things that will not require any real sacrifice at all.  One of these two solutions has got to be a lie because one calls for profound sacrifice while the other calls for practically none.I figure that the U.N. is overstating the problem and its remedy in order to dramatize how bad the crisis is.  I also think that the point of telling us to do a whole lot of little things is not to actually solve the problem, but rather, to get everybody to participate in painless little remedies and thus get them thinking that they are solving the problem.  If everybody thinks they are solving the problem, then surly they will believe there is a problem.  It is self-participatory indoctrination.  And if people believe there is a problem, they will not resist all the new carbon taxes and regulations that will soon pour forth predicated on climate change.  The lights out for an hour was just one more of those "little things" that will help us get out minds right.
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