I had to have a smile when I saw all these do-gooders with the lights turned off and a lit candle.

Now forgive my dumb ignorance was not the idea to reduce green house gas emmissions?

If it was? Then why light a candle and add to carbon dioxide emissions. A by-product of combustion such as burning a candle is carbon dioxide plus other gases.

I do turn off all electrical sources that are not in use and have done so for years. So the only way I could reduce my carbon footprint any further would be to go to bed when it got dark and get up when it gets light.

But didn't they all feel good about themselves (imagine the piety of the participants the next day at work)...for an hour. Then they went back to their air conditioned houses and flats, turned on their plasmas, computers, lights, etc. Life as usual.

Geez either do something worthwhile or don't bother.

I think you have missed the point. Earth Hour was a symbolic gesture. It was a way for ordinary people to show their support for the reduction of global warming. Obviously turning the lights off for an hour doesn't make a huge difference but it reminds people that they have the power to control global warming.

It is also a political statement because of the government's failure to ratify Kyoto. It is a polite reminder to John Howard to clean up his act on greenhouse gases.

in california, they initiate referenda against greenhouse pollution, in oz- light a candle.

with great reluctance, i say: " well done, governator, bless you, rupert". doesn't anyone wish they had access to citizen initiated referendum power? or are you content to let mining companies decide when or if we act to stop global warming?

Symbolic gestures are a waste of time. The government ignores them. Voters don't remember them at the next election.

As for the gesture itself. It wasn't even slightly successful. Hardly anyone even bothered. If sending a message to the government was intended I think the people need to turn up the volume. Or maybe it doesn't rate as highly as the media would have us believe.

As for citizen initiated referendum power, we have elections. We have "The Greens" as a political party ready to shutdown the mining and forestry industries. And yet they haven't had many votes in the past. This year, maybe we will see the citizens vote (almost like a referendum) for the Greens. I'm betting not. Maybe they are just a tad too radical.

One under reported aspect of this stunt was the extent to which people shifted to candle power. The essence of sustainability is to ask the question, if everyone did as I do, could we continue indefinitely?

And the answer is NO!

If that proportion of the population made a permanent switch to candle power the rate of house fires would return to those of Victorian era cities. And never mind the additional deaths, it wouldn't take too many extra houses to go up in smoke to completely swamp the so-called emission savings from this classic green tokenism.