It's Blog Action Day.
To be perfectly honest, I'm a little suspicious of movements like this. Because, frankly, what would happen if instead of all 7, 597 bloggers, 11,497, 083 readers and 139 countries writing about taking action we turned off our computers and walked out into the street together. And then, what would happen if we looked around at each other and took action right then and there...picking up trash, turning off enormous lit signs, and parking cars and piling in for carpools. And then, what would happen if we all committed to turning off our computers every night before we went to sleep?
I know there are all sorts of servers that need to stay up and running. But there are also thousands of personal and work computers that needlessly stay on all night every night because we think we don't need to turn them off. We leave them on to heat up our desks, run our backups and then sit and hum in the dark. Blinking their little green and red lights.
Turning off our computers at night may not stop the melting of the ice caps, but it will at least be proactive change, not just sitting on our arses and talking about the need for change. As Moxy Fruvous sang in the '90s, "Do you think you'll have some power signing a petition?"
And, yes, I turn my computer off at night. My printer too.