The Earth Hour debate

A couple of weeks back I made mention of Earth Hour, the Australian-born initiative to raise aware of climate change through asking everyone to turn off their lights and electrical appliances for one hour. It's a cause I've personally wrestled with ... While I appreciate that it is effective in terms of giving added publicity to the topic of sustainable living, it does also seem to be a token effort in the face of ongoing carbon pollution - especially as Australians seem unwilling to take the message and put it into action through buying green power or leaving their cars at home. As best I can estimate Australians have done little in the last year to mend their ways, despite most of the country having heard about Earth Hour a year ago ... but surely no one thinks that turning off the lights for one hour is enough ...?

There is also the danger of Earth Hour becoming a bandwagon, where corporate heavyweights with dubious green credentials jump on for the ride. I fear that the public may be on the verge of becoming highly cynical about some of the environmental messages out there, and attempts at 'green-washing' won't exactly help.

But at the same time, for that one hour a large number of Australians 'come together' (in some spiritual fashion at least) in doing something about carbon emissions and climate change. And that can't be a bad thing, can it?

Anyway, my interest was tweaked when Chris Simon alerted me to this editorial (Download smart_arse_april_4_2008.jpg) by John Mescall, executive creative director of SMART, in AdNews. Chris has also contributed his own spirited rebuttal here. This is not intended as an attack by me on John, and as I said, this is an issue that I am still pondering (isn't that a remarkable effort in fence-sitting??) so I thought I'd post them both up and see what everyone else has to say ... is Earth Hour a worthwhile event or an effort in corporate tokenism?

Comments

[Marc Lehmann]

Despite being a supported of the event, one of the big risks I see is that it's 'an event'. It risks letting people of the hook who like to show up for grand finals and believe it makes them a fan. How authentic is the participation? I often say to people. If you really want to know how much good you are doing for the environment ask yourself this question. How much do I spend each month? How much of a consumer am I? The simple act of forcing down your consumption does wonders in parallel with changing your daily life to sustainable methods. There's my view :)