The 'Earth Hour' Debate - To Follow Or Not To Follow

This is like the hundreds of sponsored Marathons where participants get photo ops with celebs and dump hundreds of water bottles, snack pouches everywhere. Let each switch off unwanted loads, reduce waste during cooking, minimise water use in baths and such instead of switching of power symbolically. It has become like the one minute silence at 11 AM on martyrs' day.

Thank you for raising this question. Whenever people talk about Earth Hour, I hear and read comments like "It's about demonstrating our commitment to the planet."
It is about showing that we are willing to take a stand on climate change.
It is a small effort to show our solidarity towards and promote environmental consciousness.

I keep wondering if the collective action of millions of people turning off their lights have any real, tangible impact on our planet? There are 1000s of blogs out there by researchers and enthusiasts who raise questions like "Is Earth Hour as effective as we think?"
A lot of people are raising awareness about how Earth Hour can be destructive. Many believe that people don't really understand this day or even know the reason behind it.

Would love to know what CEans think about the Earth Hour.

With the new global climate change deal agreed upon last year, I think it might not be such a bad idea to follow it. It might be just a symbolic gesture but I think it goes a long way to keep up the momentum. Its easy to follow too and doesn't require much of the effort which will also be exactly why it would be followed on a mass scale.
Yes, agreed more needs to be done than just switching off lights, but I reckon something is better than nothing when we really are at a the tipping stage, in a bid to save our brilliant planet. Moreover its a voluntary gesture, and sure helps a lot creating the much needed awareness in the community which cant be ignored.
Maybe its not so much about how much energy is saved during the hour, but a means of highlighting and bringing forth the issues facing our planet globally, asking everyone to just responsibly care enough.
Though all being said, one needs to know no amount of efforts are going to be enough, and we need to do more to undo the damage we have already caused to the environment. Its just a step forward not the end.

Rucha WankhedeI think it might not be such a bad idea to follow it.

It's not a bad idea to follow. But the Earth would definitely last longer if Last Vegas dimmed their lights off for 2 hours than city like Nagpur going dark for for a day.

Today went and got 10 LED lights (9W) from Bangalore Electric supply. So far they have sold about two lakhs of them with the target being a hundred times that.
Let us see how this pans out.

Have already replaced the most used lights in our home with LEDs.

I'm new to CE an.. you are interesting guy to see. .Kaustubh Katdare..