I support the Earth Hour concept, but it's become like Live Aid, Live 8, etc.

There are still poor people in Africa, more than 25 years after Live Aid.

And to be honest, I've forgotten what Live 8 was about. Other than the Pink Floyd/Roger Waters reunion and I'm not trying to be dismissive. I know it was about making poverty history.

Has it?

Soon to come: Water-Aid, as the world has some concerns in that area, all tied of course to environmental issues and are there any other kind?

These hours and aid events are all well and good in terms of awareness, and how can anyone today not be aware of environmental issues -- and be doing something, in their own small way, to attempt to improve things?

But it's good to see that, more and more, critical thinking is being employed. This came to mind this past week while reading an excellent, comprehensive article in Canada's MacLean's magazine, What It Will Really Take to Stop Global Warming.

As you can read, the article poses and tries to address some key questions as it analyzes what we must do, how we must think, and where the environmental movement has erred to date. Just briefly, most startling and revealing are items such as MacLean's suggesting that, "If every home in the U.S. put in one compact fluorescent light bulb...the savings in greenhouse gas emissions would be wiped out by fewer than two medium-sized coal plants. The kind of plant that is being built in China at a rate of one a week."

Or, "What we need by 2013 to meet minimum targets for emissions reductions: 30 new nuclear plants, 17,000 wind turbines, 400 biomass power plants, two hydroelectric projects the size of China's Three Gorges dam, 42 natural gas plants with carbon capture -- and we'll have to build that much every year until 2030. It's an almost comical proposition. A new nuclear plant hasn't been built in the U.S. in 30 years and in Canada, nuclear power is a political minefield."

Very interesting article. And this is coming from someone who leans left.