People who are celebrating Earth Hour this March 27 should realize that turning off their lights is not the brightest idea.
I apologize for my corny pun, but the whole concept of having a highly publicized Earth Hour, where people turn off the lights to stand up against climate change, is ridiculous.
Firstly, I found out about Earth Hour this year by reading advertisements for it on flyers that were hung up all over Carleton’s campus.
Can you say antithetical?
Not only did environmentalists waste the Earth’s precious power by using computers and printers to make these signs, they also killed trees to get the paper they were printed on.
Those trees, may I add, were probably the homes of cute fuzzy creatures.
Of course the environmentalists can put down their granola bars for a few minutes to argue that publicizing the event will result in more people saving the Earth, but that is a flawed argument. It is like saying I am going to enslave people and force them to go door-to-door telling people why slavery is wrong.
Plus, many of the advertisements for Earth Hour are not only unnecessary, but just plain stupid.
I kid you not, although I sincerely wish I was kidding, one advertisement on the Earth Hour website is a game in which people can practice shutting off a light switch. This game encourages you to conserve power by clicking on the picture of a light switch and then watching the screen turn black.
We must, however, give the environmentalists some credit. These are not just any light switches. You can choose whatever light switch you want, ranging from oversized to retro to pull-chain. You can even choose where you want the light switch to be located. My personal favourite is the cheap hotel option, or maybe the warehouse studio.
Anyways, although I could discuss possible light switch and wall combinations all day, the point is that this game is a huge waste of power.
The people behind Earth Day are hypocrites. If they sat down to think about how contradictory what they are saying and doing is, they would surely put their feet, or should I say Birkenstocks, in their mouths.
Furthermore, having a short event to take a stand against global warming is futile.
Unless you live under a rock and wear earplugs and a blindfold, you are well aware of climate change. You likely also constantly use electricity, fill up your car with gas and drink from paper coffee cups (actually double the cups now because it is Roll up the Rim time).
Turning off the lights for an hour to fight climate change is not going to make a difference. Everyone knows about the dangers of climate change. To make a difference, people who participate in Earth Hour must focus on changing their lifestyles in general.
My hope for this Earth Hour is that when people are sitting in the dark, one of those imaginary light bulbs will go off in their heads, and they will realize how fruitless what they are doing is.
One highly advertised Earth Hour is not going to save the world, or make any difference at all for that matter.
Oh, and my loathing of Earth Hour may partially be because every time I think about it the extremely annoying Nelly Furtado song that goes “Turn off the lights, turn off the lights” gets stuck in my head.