Earth Hour. Putting the 'mental' back in environmental.

That tonight's Earth Hour will make its holier than thou, onanistic environmental participants feel good about themselves is beyond doubt.

Also beyond doubt is that it is already an embarrassment. Huge amounts of energy have already gone into promoting the event, surely offsetting what little will be 'saved' during the event's one hour duration. Andrew Bolt has been reporting on some of the insanity that includes light bulb shaped hot air balloons floating over Sydney to promote the event. A fleet of Hummers running for a day and a half put out less CO2 than that little exercise. Tim Blair recommends an Hour Of Power in order to offset the damage being done by the Earth Hourians.

It is claimed that last year Sydney's electricity supply dropped 10% during Earth Hour. In fact it was around 2% - statistically indistinguishable from normal. What you aren't being told is that in the two hours before Earth Hour got under way, electricity use rose considerably because everyone was getting things done in order to prepare for having no power. The net effect? More electricity was used on that day than normal.

Way to go, guys.

It has been quite cold here in globally warmed Canberra over the last few days. I have asked my Big Green supporting mates whether they're going to turn everything off during Earth Hour including the heater. It will be very cold at 8PM here. None have given me a straight answer. Are those people hosting Earth Hour parties requiring everyone to bring a blanket, hat and gloves so that they can avoid getting some illness?

Earth Hour? More like Mirth Hour. It's all so silly.

Still. It's the symbolism that counts. Symbolism is a primary value to the Left.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is an Australian idea. Long ago are the days of famous Aussie inventions like the black box flight data recorder, Hills hoist, combine harvester, box kite, latex gloves, the pacemaker, the infamous winged keel, penicillin, Vegemite and, of course, the boomerang. If we weren't so good in the field of medicine - spray on skin, Relenza etc - we'd have nothing to show for the last 20 years. These days we're reduced to exporting pathetic, meaningless gestures.

Wikipedia's Earth Hour entry includes:

Earth Hour, under the working title 'the big flick', was conceived by members of WWF-Australia's communication team in December 2005 as a possible campaign to engage all parts of the Australian community on the need to address climate change.

A partnership was formed in August 2006 between WWF-Australia's Andy Ridley, Leo Burnett's Nigel Marsh and Fairfax Media's Phil McLean with a planned campaign date of early 2007. Earth Hour was launched publicly as a Sydney-only event on December 16, 2006 by Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and took place at 7:30pm on March 31 2007.

Following significant interest from both inside Australia and around the world, Earth Hour was formed into a non-profit entity owned by WWF-Australia, Leo Burnett and Fairfax Media. The decision was taken to make Earth Hour an open source model, allowing any genuinely interested individual, company, media or government anywhere in the world to adopt the campaign for 2008.

The 2007 Earth Hour was part of a wider awareness campaign that aimed to reduce Sydney's carbon emissions by 5%. 68,506 individuals and 2,270 businesses registered their intention to participate on the Earth Hour website. EnergyAustralia, a utility, attributed a 10.2% decrease in consumption during the hour to the campaign. A poll of about 1000 people conducted afterwards suggested that 57% of Sydneysiders participated – some 2.2 million people.

2.2 million people out of a population of 3.8 million participated and could only reduce power use by 2%. Even using the WWF's 10.2% it's still a miserable effort. It really should give people cause to contemplate the extent of reductions necessary in order to hit proposed CO2 reduction targets if that's all of the impact that can be achieved. Mind you, the 2.2 million figure was obviously achieved by using The Lancet's methodology for counting things, which means it's probably out by a factor of 10.

Strong backing from the City of Sydney and its Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, helped to make Earth Hour 2008 an international event. As of 27 March, over 11,900 businesses and over 200,000 individuals had indicated their intention to participate at earthhour.org.

People may also recall that some media outlets Photoshopped images of Sydney in order to make them look dimmer than what they actually were. The fact was that the city of Sydney was just as bright for Earth Hour as both before and after. No doubt there'll be more of the same this year in the post-event propaganda.

Earth Hour. Putting the mental back in environmental.

UPDATE: Sky News is running the following poll:

There is no vote count but the poll has been up for a long time. These online polls that go against leftist positions tend to get hit with a burst of one-sided votes, as I've proved before. Let's see whether Sky's polling software is tamper-proof.

(Nothing Follows)