Earth Hour: one more exercise in futility

With only 11 hours to go before Earth Hour celebrations(?) get under way here in E-Town, I can't help but think about just how useless this whole thing is. Its one thing to take small, tangible steps to decrease our impact on the environment but this is just plain ridiculous. The whole idea that turning off my lights for one hour will really enhance my perspective on the matter is truly laughable.

Consider that we have 365 days in a year composed of 24 hours each. This gives us a total of 8,760 hours in a given year. Let's assume for the sake of this argument that 8 hours a day are spent sleeping cutting average daily use of electricity to about two-thirds of the day. That leaves us with 5,840 hours of plugged-in time over the course of a year.

The proposal to cut into that staggering total by a single hour, dropping plugged-in time to 5,839, will not do anything in the long run. While some will argue that that impact adds up when you consider the number of participants, it still amounts to nothing in the end. If you want to make yourself feel better by identifying yourself as a participant in this farce, you go right ahead and pat yourself on the back all you want. The sad fact of the matter is that for most people this is all that they will do before cranking everything back up to full power and carrying on with their lives as if nothing had even happened.

This story is not about what people are willing to sacrifice for a mere 60 minutes. Unfortunately, this continues to say a whole lot more about what we as a society still can't bring ourselves to do with the rest of our precious time.

Post Earth Hour Update:
I spent the bulk of my evening watching a movie with my family. I did manage to steal a few quick glances out of my apartment window to see how others in the neighborhood fared. Generally speaking I saw little difference and more than a few neighboring apartments that made no apparent effort to hide what would be normal energy use. Either I'm surrounded by people with climate change awareness up the wazoo, or no one cared. I tend to think it was the latter...

Sinking to a new low

I've never been the type to hop onto the whole climate-change train and this article here gives great insight into why this whole debate can't be taken seriously. Perhaps more amusing to me is the fact that there are people who are actually this intent to show just how much trouble we're in.

Could this be the beginning?

I'm encouraged when I see news like this as it redeems my general faith in humanity. It's maddening that we now live in the kind of world where a story like this will almost certainly be glanced over my many in the MSM. You can read about more former Kyoto supporters turned skeptics here (and the list is growing!!), as well as read about an upcoming report on the foolishness of man-made climate change.

h/t to Small Dead Animals