This is nothing more than just a gesture for yuppies to not to be guilty about global warming. Can't we instead concentrate our time not on conserving but by reforming our government to actually spend money on technology to decrease pollution?

I agree fully, Brooks. Things like this are publicity, not effective change.
Pretty much it will make some baby boomers feel better about f*%king the planet. Nice job.

If you really want to make an individual statement, get involved in changing government, sell your SUV and stop buying disposable items.

Is it really fair to pin everything on the Baby Boomer generation? Haven't subsequent generations been acting pretty much exactly the same way? It's not just about gasoline and SUVs, you know. The clothes you wear, the plastic electronic toys you listen to music with, the vacations you take, the non-local food you eat, and so much more - it all contributes to the problem of too much carbon dug out of the ground and then burned. Blaming 50-somethings is just a completely unjustified way for 20-somethings to feel good about themselves. If you want to assign blame for the state we're in, put it on American society in general, and include yourselves. Our lifestyle is totally unsustainable, but almost everyone has been happy to go along for the ride until recently, and even now, I don't see that many people actually changing how they live all that dramatically. But wringing your hands about how bad everyone else is makes you feel better about yourself, doesn't it?

And also, at this point, even if the entire US population suddenly saw the light and drastically reduced our energy consumption, it would hardly make a difference. China is coming on strong and will overtake the US in energy consumption within 10-20 years, and nothing short of global catastrophe is going to stop them.

So, instead of the baby boomers we should blame China?

I have nothing against the baby boomers ... OK, well I do, and I don't absolve myself or my generation from blame. However, these crises all seem to be coming to a head while the baby boomers are in the height of their power both here and overseas. But we, of all generations, are the ones who put them in power in the first place, eh?

Being in the field I am in (and my paying job ain't music), I know that no matter what we do to the planet, it will survive just find, wiping us off the map neatly and cleaning and going back to ticking along. We might screw ourselves over, but don't kid yourself. "Save the planet" is just "save the humans". The climate has a funny way of readjusting itself after crisis.

That is not to say we shouldn't get our habits more in line with what can actually be sustained on the planet. We're at a crossroads where we need to do one of two things: (1) reduce consumption to live within the means of the planets or (2) figure out how to get resources/live on other planets.
Otherwise we'll end of with (3) extinction of the humans.

Goofy? Sure. But what I'm seeing is this awareness event publicity stunt/guilt absolution thing got people thinking and talking about the topic. Maybe that was the point all along, and not actually about trying to make a measurable difference in energy consumption for one hour in each time zone.

Meanwhile, I'm humming
"...With the lights out
It's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us.."

I'm sure there are other songs about lights out, but I can't seem to shake this one loose from my ear.
"A denial..."

"Otherwise we'll end of with (3) extinction of the humans."

This is almost certainly going to be the end result of our civilization. It won't happen overnight, of course, but I would guess that within a few hundred years, maybe a thousand at most, humans will either be completely gone, or barely hanging in a few isolated pockets. Once all the oil, coal, trees, and metals are depleted, and the planet is abysmally hot with desertification of large areas of formerly productive land and submergence of much coastal land (where most of our species live), it will be time for another species (probably not an intelligent species) to come to the forefront. Luckily for those of us alive today, we won't be around to experience any of this. I don't envy those who will be, though.

In many ways, this is just to be expected; the natural order of life. Homo sap has been the dominant species here for just about 200,000 years. Dinosaurs were the dominant species for over 160,000,000 years. Just think about that for a few seconds. Is there really any chance that our race can beat or even match that record, given where we find ourselves now, after what is just a moment of geological time? And if you're thinking, "Oh, but we have intelligence, we can adapt", you're fooling yourself. There is absolutely no proof that intelligence per se guarantees long term survival of a race. It's just our hubris that makes us assume that to be true.

"(2) figure out how to get resources/live on other planets."

Agree 100%. Unfortunately, mankind as a group just doesn't have this kind of foresight. And by the time we do realize the necessity, our technology, resources, and intellectual capacity may be so degraded as to make it functionally impossible.