So let me get this straight. At the end of March, Nashville will be one of the cities across the country who will celebrate Earth Hour, which will somehow let people know about global warming if we haven’t heard about it yet. Nashville will turn off all of its non-essential lights (I guess this includes hospital lights and traffic signals) for one hour to, um, make a bold statement or something?
Okay, whatever. I get it and I can handle it. The World Wildlife Federation and some other environmentalist groups are involved, and it will somehow make people more aware. An hour without the lights on is more of a nuisance than an educational event, but if people and businesses in Nashville want to sit in the dark for sixty minutes, they can go right ahead.
But now Earth Hour is getting “kicked off” tomorrow in downtown, according to a press release. Mayor Dean will be there, along with some officials from the organizations sponsoring Earth Hour and local businesses. Oh, and Jo Dee Messina is singing at the event.
What’s the point of this? Obviously they want to publicize the event, but I am trying to follow the logic of flying in all sorts of people on fuel-wasting jets to come together to promote a single hour of lights out, Nashville. I am failing. What all needs to be said about the Earth Hour? Turn off your lights for an hour, turn ‘em back on, feel good about yourself not for helping the environment but for letting people know that they should help the environment. 1, 2, 3.
Clearly there are ulterior motives afoot. How does Nashville benefit from participating in and promoting the crap out of Earth Hour? Businesses are signing on to this not because they have any sort of heartfelt desire to teach the world a lesson about energy consumption; they’re tapping into what the public wants! Environmental chic and culture is very in right now, so why wouldn’t businesses want to attach their names to something like Earth Hour, given the global magnitude of the event (it’s happening in over 50 other countries, supposedly)?
Dean’s got an interest in attracting more businesses and people to Nashville, so why not take advantage of an opportunity for the city to look even more progressive than it already is? All in all, it seems like a harmless yet stupid way to promote energy conservation, just as long as I don’t have Metro police knocking at my door on March 28 telling me to turn off my lights. But governments would never try to legislate such affronts to personal liberty, right? Right?
