World Monuments Will Go Dark for Earth Hour, But Not in Washington, D.C.

hasn't Obama's rhetoric been about embracing the global community? didn't Obama run on a platform that promoted energy efficiency; specifically one of the details touted being carbon footprint reduction in government buildings?

turning off the national monument lights - especially during the first week of Cherry Blossom festival - would have provided an excellent gesture to reinforce the discussions starting today by special envoy on climate change, todd stern in Bonn, Germany (yeah that was far to 'global' in its reach for your paper to connect the dots on, you could only talk in romantic terms of pyramids, and not the practical terms that are going to see us through these crises we face).

the Obama administration should recognize its' mistake, and in a public address to the world, proclaim for earth day - april 22 - it will register through 'whitehouse.gov' millions of America's (one should argue here, the WH should make its' goal to register that billion globally) to pledge to turn out their lights in a demonstration - especially in context of upcoming conversations at the G20 meeting - to reflect that the US will match the global cry for genuine change, and will rise to the leadership status this nation MUST assume by committing to turn off the lights for four hours (symbolically, one term of an American President).

further, if the editorial board of this paper thought this article worthy, it should have focused on secretary of interior salazar, and the criticism by environmentalist of his poor environmental record. then you should have done your job better by being critical of your government, and highlighted salazar's defensive posturing through his proclaiming a 'moon shot on energy independence.' it was salazar, and his staff, that should have been on top of this simple task - not 'rocket science of a moon shot' here boys: we're just turning off the lights. reminds one of the start of a bad joke doesn't it... maybe if Wall Street had told Obama this was a good idea, he would've had unmanned drones drop money from the sky to drown out the emission of light.

this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine...

angry and embarrassed American of DC 2:55AM March 29, 2009