Monday, March 23, 2009

The darkest hour

I hate to sound like an enviro-grinch, but I'm finding that the more well-known Earth Hour becomes, the more devoid of substance it becomes. I was brought up to turn off the lights, keep the door closed when the furnace was running and generally avoid needless electricity consumption. But the campaign does little to connect an hour of darkness with the desired outcomes. The campaign posters certainly dedicate more space to the sponsors than the intentions. It seems to have something to do with saving polar bears and Coca Cola--is it all polar bears or just the ones in the Coke commercials?

The World Wildlife Federation's website declares that the event "sends a very powerful message to government and world leaders that people want policies and regulations put in place that can achieve meaningful emission reduction to help fight climate change." How so? Does turning off the lights for an hour signal a desire for (considerably) electricity rates that reflect the real cost of power generation? A desire for rolling blackouts? Smart meters? For laws demanding more energy efficient appliances? For nuclear energy? For more wind mills? Who knows.

You can argue that any awareness of energy conservation is a good thing, but when you look at how many sponsorship dollars are being funnelled into this project, a feel-good hour of symbolism isn't a great return on investment. Organizers need to dump so more content into the event to help people connect the dots between one hour of conservation to a lifetime of eco-friendly consumption... make that sustainable consumption...er, make that less-destructive consumption. Any way you cut it, that's a lot of dots to connect.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for the comment!