Look I'm not so naive as to think that simply shutting off the lights for an hour will save the planet (though that would be a neat trick).

We don't need to all become Luddites and renounce technology and the power that enables it as some kind of great Satan that needs to be vanquished. Technology requires power and it always will and there is nothing wrong with that.

The problem as I see it rests with the fact that industrialized nations have not found the way to produce mass quantities of electrical power without significant environmental impact. If we had say the promise of clean and pure fusion power then perhaps the need for an Earth Hour would not exist. Fusion however doesn't exist outside of weapons, advanced research models and oh yeah the Sun. A few electrical cars on the roads wouldn't be a bad thing either.

The world is what it is though -- and the Inconvenient Truth - is that our thirst for power is destroying the planet.

I've signed up on the main EarthHour.org website in support of the global Earth Hour effort. At the very least the mass attention the issue is getting may help to spur people, governments and technology to find better ways to generate and use power.

No, I won't ever buy 'carbon offsets' but yes I will virtualize what I can, turn off servers when I can, use VoIP and collaboration tools instead of flying and/or driving when I can. Technology is not the demon that created the power problem, but it could be the angel that saves it.