i don't think the issue here is just about global warming. if we look at it from farther away, it's about how we're treating our environment, or even larger than that. this makes the technical issues re: global warming some what redundant (to me). whether we caused it, whether we can stop it, etc
but in any case, my layman take on it is:
1. the majority consensus is that global warming is occurring (AFAIK, based on my sources, e.g. NOAA, journal articles from a few years back, etc). it doesnt matter whether it's human-induced
2. do humans have a big impact on weather/climate, i.e. do our actions now matter? yes i believe so. when flights were grounded after 9/11, the US saw dramatic changes in weather just due to the lack of contrails generated by flights (see global dimming). just 2 days. of course weather/climate is a very complex system and ... well. my yes is a conservative yes.
anyway, back to the real issue: we need to look after our environment more. we need to consume less. especially if the consumption is needless.
the way our world is structured now, our lives are defined in large part by what we consume (what we can afford). our identity is often related to our material quality of living (e.g. atas vs heartlander). advertising makes us demand things we don't need. think of how many items we really need, and how many more only confer status and prestige.
companies engineer products to fail within a certain number of years (this is discussed in industrial design journals!). this is a wasteful use of resources. not just in terms of raw materials and man-hours, but also costs of waste disposal and storage, and harm to the environment in extracting resources.
in order to consume, we work our lives away and sacrifice our happiness - our leisure time, our social connections with family and community, our dignity (and some say morals). what is the point? what is progress? are we progressing when we have more material products, and cycle through them in shorter periods of time? why is this the goal of most societies in the world? (just because as i mentioned earlier, corporations are the real powers in the world today, not governments, and they control the media, which affects our minds?) and should this be our goal?
and just for this, we are putting a huge strain on the environment. do we know the cost of extracting natural resources? the damage caused by oil exploration and extraction? the air pollution caused in manufacturing plastics and metals, and in incinerating wastes? the costs of secure landfills for waste? the deforestation caused by mining, farming, and cattle ranching to supply our Macdonald burgers? how about the cost of armed conflict over the control of resources? blood diamonds from angola? crude oil from nigeria? soccer balls made by child labour in sweatshops in pakistan? the social cost of conflict? the human and social costs of income inequality and class divides (starvation, illness, premature death, terrible standards of living)?
a lot of these costs are not paid by the consumer. neither are they paid by the corporations. they're paid by whoever happens to live there. the locals. the third-worlders. the people who live downwind of the incineration plant. the people who live over old (toxic) landfills. how about the cost on the globe possibly (global warming), and the fearful cost of how terribly irreversible some of these things might be?
why don't we consume less? then we can work less (and care more, love more). and perhaps we can restore and sustain our environments. but we can't work less, because we would fall behind. because we live in a competitive capitalistic world (and capitalism is good because it promotes competition). they can't work less either, or they would fall behind too.
i'm not saying we should be communists or anarchists, but if the people could speak up more against big business, against governments, perhaps we will be able to get what we really want, deep inside.
this is what earth hour is about in the bigger picture. not just one hour. not just global warming. but how society is organised and how we live our lives. who are we? who are you?
and if you say to make change we have to do politics (and politics is reserved for the elite here in singapore), our actions are peanuts, etc. then why aren't we acting for earth hour? that's at least something we could all do.
like THOA says:
Part of the appeal of Earth Hour is because it is something so doable. Most of us can't stop a war. Most of us can't stop starvation. Most of us can't aid the poor. Most of us can't plant a tree. Most of us can't or won't donate blood even. Why? Because these are things that fall outside the scope of our routine lives.
(though I think "falling outside the scope of our routine lives" is just an excuse for apathy, or a cynical realism)
