It Hurts to Think …

“Created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for an hour to deliver a message about the need for a concerted action against global warming.” – earthhourus.org 

I can see certain advantages of choosing such a frivolous method to “take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced”.  You’ll notice that the kindly folks at the World Wildlife Fund said nothing about turning off the TV. This event needs media, and the media doesn’t like to lose advertising revenue. Due to the fact that the elements in society that profit from conditions that lead to global warming (oil companies) won’t feel threatened by this, the corporate media that is controlled by them, will give this event attention. The attention will benefit the event regardless of whether the event benefits the cause. Hence, there is an advantage to the event.  

Earth Hour will have a lot of accidental participants as it will happen at a time during which a lot of couch potatoes haven’t even got off their couch to turn on their lights anyway. Therefore people can literally do their part by choosing to do nothing. The event gets another advantage because it can claim many more participants.

Everyone already knows about this problem, so this event will have almost no value in terms of raising awareness. We are reminded of climate change constantly, for example, when earlier this week a chunk of ice bigger than Montreal broke off the Antarctic ice shelf, and images of the collapse were captured by a satellite - a grim reminder indeed. It seems like every day new studies are released that provide new dire predictions concerning the impact of climate change.

We know already.

Everyone with a pulse has thought about it. Most decided that they can’t do anything about it, and apathetically go on about their lives. But then, Earth Hour comes along to save them from the guilt of doing nothing. Now they can “take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced” and still do nothing!  

Advantage: apathetic lazy people who will derive benefit from a little band aid applied to their guilty consciences. A little band aid with perhaps a cute little panda bear on it.

I’m going to leave the lights on, and turn my brain off. It needs to cool down just like the planet.