Earth Hour: A Real Turn-Off

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven"

(Matthew 5: 16)

Earth Hour, invented almost two thousand years after these words were written, seems to take us back to a darkness even darker than that which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, when men retreated from the bright open spaces of the poltical arena and cowered in the shadows of the churches and monasteries. But even the Christian-inspired Dark Ages paid lip service to the idea of light. Earth Hour sees light as the problem, if you can talk about its organisers 'seeing the light' at all.

Earth Hour wouldn't be so bad a campaign if it had a clear idea of what it wanted and was therefore able to shine a light on some kind of goal at which people could aim. But what did people actually do during Earth Hour? What inspirational acts are we to emulate? Well, in New Zealand they held a candle-lit concert (why not a pitch-black concert?), and the Earth Hour website shows crowds from around the world gathering to see the dark. The effort involved in this is minuscule - roughly the equivalent of lying down in a darkened room somewhere. Indeed, that is more or less what Boris Johnson said he would be doing during Earth Hour. So much for our political leaders.

Of course, the real effort all took place well before Earth Hour itself, behind the scenes as officials from the World Wildlife Fund met with civic officials and invited them to display their green credentials for the kids. Uppermost on the "Get Involved" page of the New Zealand Earth Hour website is the corporate pack geared not towards the likes of you and me but at businesses who want the publicity. The involvement of 'the people' comes much, much later, if at all. The people are as active in this campaign as pawns are in a game of chess. Sorry, St Matthew, there are no "good works" here.

I am in half a mind to organise a "Power Hour" to coincide with next year's Earth Hour, when the people can get together in the most brightly lit building in the city, and listen to loud music, with chilled or hot drinks, and with the standby buttons on every piece of electrical equipment switched on. We need to emerge from the darkness and shine a light on power, both electrical and political.