I’m all for the efficient use of resources, but I think that the symbolism of Earth Hour (encouraging everyone to turn off their lights between 8 and 9pm tonight) is awful.

It reminds us that many who oppose modern comforts regardless of environmental impacts are using the specter of global warming to move us back to the dark ages.

And Google is helping, with their black-background homepage today.

Maybe Google should do something that would actually have an impact on energy use and shut down all of its servers for an hour. Maybe for a week! Or, maybe for a few hours every night. I’m sure the earth would really be better off then!

They could follow the progressive lead of that great earth-friendly country: North Korea. This picture of the Korean peninsula at night speaks volumes.

Nobody is going to make much progress at actually improving our energy-use situation sitting in the dark tonight.

I’m going to turn on a few extra lights at 8pm.

I’d rather make a symbolic statement supporting the Enlightenment.