The city of Sydney, Australia, had a bright idea last year.

In March 2007, more than 2 million Sydneysiders, as the residents of Sydney are called, voluntarily participated in the Earth Hour, a project by the World Wildlife Fund of Australia. Participants turned off nonessential electronic devices such as lights, microwaves and TVs for one hour. In one hour, Sydneysiders prevented 25 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

This astounding result, the equivalent of nearly 49,000 cars being off the road for one hour, was nearly double the benefit expected by WWF-Australia. Roughly half of Sydney’s population participated in Earth Hour and cut energy consumption by 10 percent, which is roughly the amount of electricity need to power 6,500 homes.

A grassroots campaign called Lights Out America started in San Francisco is attempting to make the Earth Hour a nationwide event. The group is planning the event for March 29 between 8 and 9 p.m. So far, 11 cities from across the U.S. have pledged to participate, from San Francisco to Boston. These 11 cities have an estimated population of around 75,000,000.

Because I have my doubts about the proactive nature of Americans, let’s say that only a quarter of the cities’ citizens participate. That would still be nearly 19,000,000 people who would switch off for an hour. Because the actual number of participants cannot be known before the actual event, Lights Out America is refraining from setting goals, merely saying on its Web site that the group hopes for at least the results that Sydney saw in 2007.

Lights Out America is a perfect example of what climate change should be. It represents a true groundswell of public action with the citizenry being challenged to do what its government is unable or unwilling to push for. Lights Out is a true environmental movement, unlike the Live Earth concerts, which were consumerism masquerading as environmentalism. Although the goal of the Live Earth series was to “combat the climate crisis,” critics of the event, such as John Buckley of ClimateFootPrint, claim that the concerts created a carbon footprint of at least 74.5 tons and performers flew more than 200,000 miles, or nine times around the world.

The Live Earth Web site is full of pretty pictures and useful factoids such as the benefits of compact fluorescent light bulbs, but it is disturbingly devoid of information relating to the what has become of all the revenue generated from ticket sales. The Web site Intelligent Giving attempted to track down where the money was going. After getting the runaround from several different organizations, they finally found on the Web site for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection that the revenue would be used to “lobby the U.S. government to change the laws on climate change.” That’s right, lobbying will save the planet.

While I can appreciate the ideas behind the Live Earth movement, it has quickly become too commercial and the Web site is clogged with banners and buttons hawking Live Earth crap like the Gap (RED) line – apparently the best thing we can do is to continue buying things to show how much we care.

Lights Out is a nonprofit organization whose Web host is 100 percent solar-powered and all printed promotional materials are made with recycled materials. Lights Out doesn’t have the star of Al Gore stumping for them, but that might not be a bad thing. Controversy surrounding Gore and the debate or whether he will run for president again has allowed critics of his new green image to paint him as a savvy politician who’s found a gold mine of public support. Lights Out is not associated with any political party or any individual, and all its funding comes from donations.

The actual benefits of Live Earth are indistinct and seem to be a chance for corporations to show Americans that they too care about the environment, so don’t quit buying their products. At its heart, Live Earth is about consumption; if you didn’t buy the ridiculously priced tickets to the concerts, then buy a T-shirt proclaiming that “green is the new black” – and if you’re feeling particularly green, buy a new low-emission SMART car by DaimlerChrysler. Lights Out is not asking any of participants to buy anything, not even a Lights Out T-shirt. All they’re asking if for people to turn off lights.

Do more by using less – what a novel concept in the fight against climate change. Lights Out represents a chance for the climate change movement to be reclaimed by the grassroots community. Being green has quickly become the latest “in” thing, with corporations and politicians co-opting the message for their own personal gains. Live Earth is the perfect example of corporate environmentalism – their hearts might be in the right place, but something gets lost in the translation. Environmentalism is about conservation and cannot be about consuming, unless you’re buying trees or solar cells for your house.

Buying concert tickets and T-shirts proclaiming your “greenness” will not save the planet, but they allow people to feel as if they’ve done something without actually having done anything. Lights Out, in its small, grassroots way, has the potential to create more change in one hour than the 24 hours of Live Earth concerts.

– Quincy Miller is a senior in English from Altoona.