Earth Hour reminds me of Australia's "say sorry to aborigines" charades, excuse me, parades, excuse me, "marches". Everyone gets to feel good about themselves, pat themselves on the back for having made a tiny sacrifice of time, and nothing actually results from the whole game. Earth Hour is a classic case. It is a very easy thing to forgo electricity for one hour. Instead of doing the customary penance of switching off the lights you should really not use any electricity at all. This would involve turning off the mains switch on your home and not using any battery powered devices either. In that time, you can rely on the fact that the food in your freezer will stay frozen. The milk in the fridge will not curdle. Your house probably won't be broken into in the brief window of opportunity when the security is down. So what? All you are doing is living on the residual energy output (freezer takes a while to warm up, etc.) or depending on the imminent resumption of output. If people are serious, they should practice Earth Week. They should refrain from all uses of electricity or gas or coal or firewood for an entire week. Strictly speaking they shouldn't eat or breath either, but we'll let that pass. To take it to its logical conclusion, it should also be forbidden to take advantage of someone else having expended energy on your behalf. Thus it would not be permissible to walk to a supermarket since that place is only in operation because it has lights, security, electronic cash registers, and merchandise delivered by truck. You can't catch a bus, train, boat etc to work. You can't store anything that requires refrigeration. Your light source after the sun goes down consists of candles. Your heating consists of blankets and body warmth, and your cooling system consists of hand held fans. You can't even cool off in the local pool because the pumping system depends on electricity, not to mention all those nasty chemicals. No TV or radio. No newspapers (as they are produced and delivered in forbidden ways). No battery powered smoke detectors. You better hope there are no medical emergencies, because doctors' offices can no longer operate without electricity, even if there is one close enough to walk to. Certainly no ambulances. Mind you, you can't call for an ambulance either, since that would involve using electricity. Let's face it: if you get appendicitis in the next week, you're screwed. Happy Earth Week, you Luddites!