The Washington Post wakes up to the vacuity of so many anti-climate-change initiatives: “On Climate, Symbols Can Overshadow Substance – Lights-Out Event More Showy Than Practical” – by Shankar Vedantam
[…] the modern environmental movement […] has become a crusade that is partly moral statement and partly fashion statement. Earth Hour, Earth Day and the Miss Earth beauty pageant — “saving the planet, one pageant at a time” — generate lots of publicity, but they also tend to prompt people and companies to choose what looks good over what works.
[…] “Solar panels are popular because you can see you are doing something — and your neighbors can see it, too.”
[…] The behavior of individuals, companies and nations is largely determined by structural factors, not personal choices.
[…] When it comes to turning off lights, for example, Earth Hour would have produced far more energy savings — although no cool photos of darkened cities — if it had asked people to save energy during the late afternoon, rather than at 8 p.m.