Earth Day, Earth Hour- Lights Out For An Hour, Lights Out For Good For One Rare Rain Forest

Earth Day is approaching, and more importantly, earth hour, in which there is a worldwide effort to turn off the lights for one hour and reduce energy consumption. This event is designed to raise awareness about climate change and to save the planet. There is an argument that an event such as this has an opposite effect. That instead of accomplishing anything substantive, it instead allows people to be complacent and not have to do anything. Undertakings that make people feel good, but require little to nothing else, are more harmful than good if they allow people to do only the symbolic, easy to accomplish, often worthless tasks, and not the difficult, meaningful ones. Is earth hour, lights out, only a symbolic, feel good event that makes people feel good, but that accomplishes little to nothing? Does it let people off the hook from having to make real change? The answer can be found in the actions of certain worldwide, so called conservation/ wildlife protection organizations, and what they did in one particular country where many have a strong presence. There is a rare rain forest in that already heavily deforested, environmentally degraded, polluted nation. One of the last rain forests in that country, and home to highly endangered species. A huge development plan was set in motion that we knew would be enormously damaging to the forest and to its wildlife. We begged and pleaded with a number of wildlife/conservation groups that bill themselves as the protectors of wildlife and/or of rain forest, birds, bats, and so on. A number of organizations responded to our emails, phone calls, meetings in person, about the need to protect the rain forest and its rare wildlife. When it was clear we needed them to actually help or at least try and help, and not provide empty words and talk, they stopped emailing and all communication. Earth hour brings enormous free publicity and positive press coverage for a number of conservation/wildlife organizations, including for at least one of the organizations that we tried to get involved. When it came to actually saving, or at least trying to save, a rare rain forest and its rare wildlife, which meant upsetting powerful interests, probably no free and positive publicity, nothing was done. The destruction of that one rain forest, the loss of trees, vegetation and habitat, will contribute to climate change and carbon added to the environment. It is a huge, permanent loss, and has far more of a negative environmental impact than anything positive that can result from lights out for an hour. Imagine the executives of one of these organizations sitting in their board room, having a conversation about earth hour - "Lights out for an hour means we do not tick anyone off, and that the donations can still pour in. It seems like we are doing something for the planet, and earth hour certainly feeds that impression, so we can have our cake and eat it too. We can keep pretending we are an effective wildlife/conservation group, and we will keep making a fortune in contributions. The world actually thinks we are the answer to conservation". The world cannot, and should not, absorb any longer the massive failures in the nonprofit world of conservation/wildlife/animal protection that these organizations have done a tremendous job of keeping hidden. Let the so called conservation/wildlife/ animal organizations have whatever ineffective self serving projects they want. Real conservation, wildlife and animal protection needs to move fully out of their far too often greedy little hands and into the realm of responsible, not corrupt, serious governments and countries that are capable of doing real conservation and wildlife protection work. There is too little left anymore of nature and wildlife to continue to not be serious.