Earth hour for our earth?

Hola, compadres. We are back from our trip. We have been away in the jungles of Peru finding out more about deforestation, the impact of our decadent Western ways on the indigenous peoples and to conduct a thorough survey of South American subject indexing techniques, and those guys can chain index with the best of them, let me tell you.

Anyway, while we have been away, we became very excited to learn of the WWF’s Earth Hour campaign to save the world. All we had to do was switch off our lights for an hour last Saturday and the polar ice caps will start to refreeze. So, upon our return we checked that everyone in the commune was on-message and held focus group meetings to ensure that everyone was turned on to the big switch-off. Emergencies were a big talking point among the group, Hell’s Bells, things threatened to get a bit Sheridan, but I was allowed to keep my halogen head torch on to permit me to keep cataloguing while the lights were off (no excuse for halting production) and a few of us have also been working on translating AACR into txt spk, so a candle was lit to allow that work to proceed. We were all set for doing our bit for this glorious international coming together.

At the appointed hour we made out way outside to bask in the cleansing darkness, and maybe play some Peruvian pipe music, only to be greeted with well-illuminated apathy all around, with lights a-glow in all directions and the unmistakable flicker of TVs being watched. Come on people, the revolution will not be televised and if we are to change the world, we can’t do it in the ad break between Ant N Dec and Holby City. You were supposed to put the telly off too! Or is it just a step too far to do without it for an hour? Those in the know realised that to invite us to do this would upset the marketing executives, and we clearly need to be told what to do every step of the revolutionary way.  So, brother and sisters – no Cillit Bang, no Actimel and no McCain oven chips. Why don’t you just switch off ….

For those who didn’t bother and carried on indulging in your 21st century consumer gluttony, shame on you, may all your cards become misfiled. For those who managed to switch off a light or two, but could not quite switch off your telly, we hope you feel better, but you have changed nothing. Those that can feel as smug as us are those who flicked the master switch under the stairs, put some towels in front of the freezer and sat in the darkness contemplating how to make the last few drops last a bit longer.

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