Google Goes Black To Go Green

In a perfect example of pointless gestures in "raising awareness," Google has changed the background of their search page from black to white to combat the effects of man-made global warming. The idea is not for Google to shut down and stop using energy for a day-not even for an hour, as they ask their customers to do this evening. Google freely admits, " it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display." Besides, turning off your entire business for a day to combat something that no one can prove is happening would be stupid. They just want you to know that they care. They also want you to turn out your lights for an hour. Here's the plan, according to http://www.google.com/intl/en/earthhour/

"On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation." Will it help save the earth from global warming? No....but won't it feel good to acknowledge your commitment? To show your friends and co-workers that you care? Well...it probably won't even accomplish that much. In fact, after about five minutes in the dark tonight, you'll probably begin to feel pretty stupid. And bored. You'll get tired of trying to feel like you've "done something" to combat global warming, switch your computer back on, and go back to chatting on My Space with other people who "care" about global warming. Google, having done nothing real at all to save the planet (by their own admission), can still pat themselves on their backs for making you feel guilty enough about the "threat of global warming" to turn out your lights. Meanwhile, the only proof that global warming exists is- the nightly news says it exists. No where have I read anything that shows conclusive evidence. Since I don't believe in participating in useless exercises in self-gratification (with the exception of my blog, of course), I'll be leaving my lights on. If you choose to turn yours off, well...then you really are in the dark. Just don't expect it to change anything.