A letter of concern: Turn down the lights, turn up the heat

Oh yeah, baby. I’m gonna turn off this desk light here, just for you. Let’s get things nice and dark, because you know that I care about your future. Sure, sugar, this is all about embracing my personal environmental responsibilities. Mmm-hmm, let’s talk about carbon sequestering while I unplug the phone…

This kind of debauchery happened all over the world this past Saturday night during the fourth annual Earth Hour, the global day of action which asks its depraved participants to switch off lights and other energy-sucking devices from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time. Started in lascivious Sydney, Australia, as an interactive way to get individuals involved in climate action, the excuse for a late evening trip Down Under has spread internationally. It’s reached five continents, thousands of cities, and roughly one billion individual philanderers last Saturday night, more participants than have ever registered before, which goes to prove that this kind of monkey business is catching on, much to our chagrin. Even the farthest poles of the planet were touched by this excuse to cuddle close to your Birkenstocked, granola-crunching significant other: 27 people and/or businesses in Antarctica registered on the Earth Hour website, and Antarctica does not even have permanent residents! Are the penguins also going to be getting in on this green love free-for-all? When even the fowl have run afoul, something must be done.

For, while the Earth Hour home page may claim it is a “campaign based on hope not fear,” let’s call a spade a spade—this is a campaign based on the stuff of fevered teenage fantasies. The entire world, over a span of 24 hours, in sexy, environmentally conscious intimate darkness! You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know how much awareness of nature is an aphrodisiac. And while it is unfair for me to speculate and generalize, surely we can make the assumption that those so eager to flick off bedside lamps are monopolizing on a rare opportunity. The personal hygiene practices of the Earth Hour participants simply can’t be up to snuff (conserve water and smell good? I wasn’t born yesterday!), and, most egregious of all, when you spend all your day hugging trees, why would you look for a human to love? There seems to be no better way to cure what ails ‘em than to gather up all the social misfits around the globe, and spend one day hiding from the harsh, unforgiving glow of an incandescent bulb. When great landmarks like the Las Vegas Strip, the “Bird’s Nest” Stadium in Beijing, or the Acropolis in Athens were plunged into darkness on Saturday, you know that nobody was settling down for a nap.

I stray from my concern in order to make one bold suggestion, though it pains me greatly. Columbia, we need all the help we can get. Our notorious lack of sexuality on campus can only benefit from this kind of blatant, devil-may-care condoning of romance. Books, archives, and library shelves aren’t the only things that get dusty from disuse. So, let’s get on case, my fellow Lions, and one again be masters of our domain.

The immortality of rock ’n’ roll legends is based in a melancholic credo: it’s better to burn out than fade away. Let’s be honest, though, we’ve never been as cool as our vinyl legends, and frankly it is cliché to aim for one blaze of glory. Earth Hour aims to accomplish equal lasting power, but one that is sustained by attention, awareness, and involvement, and if that manifests itself in international days of turning the lights down low, then c’est la vie. It may not have any practical ends, but what is lacking in applicable change is compensated in participation, and for that reason we, too, should throw in the hat. We don’t have the luxury to be remembered—what matters is the here and now of activism. To that end, New York City itself saw the darkening of the Empire State Building, Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night. Next year, Columbia should power down with the rest of them, and declare our support for personal environmental responsibility. Who knows? Maybe these crazy Earth Hour kids are onto something.

Elizabeth Kipp-Giusti is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in religion with a concentration in human rights. She is a Columbia EcoRep. A Tree Grows in Morningside runs alternate Fridays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com