Praying To Al Gore

Am I the only one who finds this whole "Earth Hour" thing -- where everyone was supposed to turn off their electricity between 8 and 9 tonight -- basically silly? This is more than my usual attitude of "your protest is stupid because it has no immediate concrete results you can point to." I'm too tired right now to put my finger on exactly why, but Earth Hour seems to reinforce the conceptualization of environmentalism as a spiritual practice rather than a movement for socio-political change, a closer cousin to observing Lent or Ramadan than to making fun of Sheriff Joe or taking pictures of people who stare at your disability. The "spiritual practice" trap seems to be an especially big pitfall for environmentalism and animal rights, more so than it is (in my admittedly idiosyncratic and incomplete experience) for other foci of agitation for social change.