It's sad because it's come to that level of pettiness--there are an astronomical number of better things to protest.
I fail to see any pettiness, though I'm sure you would like to ascribe that to me. As for "better things" to protest, I can't think of one. The "earth hour" demonstration was designed to give a big push to government action against carbon emissions. The more such actions are implemented, the more human misery there will be. You think the economic downturn is bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet! Just the publicity around biofuels has caused a big jump in world food prices which we can well afford, but which is causing hunger amoung the worlds poorest. And there isn't even a food shortage, it's just the impression that food will be diverted into fuel that resulted in the jump in futures markets.
It's irresponsible because it's deliberately wasteful. (I could also add that it's hypocritical/contradictory because you're protesting WWF irresponsibility/hypocrisy by acting irresponsibly.)
Better?
Better. But, of course, I disagree. I live on "Candy Cane Lane" in my town. For 8 hours every day for one month every Christmas, strings of lights crisscross the street between trees and lamposts, houses are festooned with lights and displays. Thousands of people drive throught the neighborhood to see them. Now that's wasteful. Yet most of the people on my street turned off their lights for earth hour, and next year those same people will be lighting up for Christmas as usual. Now that's hypocritical! And once earth hour was over they went back to burning electricity as usual while I turned off my excess lighting.
I don't consider my actions to be wasteful. I use much more electricity running this computer every day than went into my protest. I use much more every day running my wood lathe making unnecessary (but nice) doo-dads and trinkets. Besides, it was definitely not during peak load times, there was excess capacity available from all the people turning off their lights, so it was the absolute best time for that particular demonstration.
Didn't the good citizens of Sydney turn on every light possible one night a few years ago so they could be seen from the space shuttle, or something like that? Not to consistent are they?
Yes, because it is about global warming. It targets emissions that cause global warming. People who participate in Earth Hour are usually against harmful emissions in general. Hence, Earth Hour is necessarily also about reducing harmful emissions in general.
Those who participated in my protest also are opposed to harmful emissions. In fact if the money being spent on "global warming" were spent on real pollution problems the world would be a much cleaner, healthier place. For those who support earth hour, the reduction in harmful emissions are basically a beneficial side effect.
