What’s that old chestnut they trot out in Philosophy 101? If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no-one there, does it make a noise when it falls? I’ve never enrolled in Philosophy 101 so I can’t tell you the answer. Neither do I know if a message is a message if it’s not received. Tonight the hour starting 8:30 p.m. is Earth Hour 2009. Actually it’s WWF Earth Hour 2009 – because apparently the WWF’s acquired the naming rights. WWF-titled or not, turning off lights during Earth Hour 2009 is meant to ‘send a strong message on climate change to world leaders’. Earth Hour 2009 has 62 countries signed up to flick off the switch. The data aren’t available, but I’ll bet that since Earth Hour began in 2007, the air’s carbon concentration has not only not fallen, but the rate of increase hasn’t even slowed. And almost certainly it’s steepened. So if Earth Hour’s aim is to ‘send a strong message…to world leaders’, then either they’ve not received it (unlikely) or they’re ignoring it (likely). Earth Hour 2009 aims for a billion people in a thousand cities worldwide to switch off lights as part of the largest ever call to climate change action. Rousing stuff, but useless unless every single world leader assigns global warming and climate change the highest policy priority. If they haven’t done so by now, they never will. Which is why I’m not flicking off my light switches tonight.
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