Many have done so because like elections, they are there for "symbolism". It is more about social fad and peer pressure. Most of these participants hardly know of the economic and political implications and the attendant "costs" of what "earth hour" is about, and to whose benefit such policies would bring about.
Think of it, why does everyone seem to protest when prices of energy goes up, when high prices, in the real world, should spur "conservation" or a shift in consuming patterns?
So almost like everything else popular, seductive soundbites make it appear that the solution to environmental predicament is just a matter of allegorical representation or popular appeal, devoid of economic truths.
Nevertheless, we have a great example of earth hour as a permanent policy-North Korea!
According to a 2006 Daily Mail report, (picture above)
``The regime in the north is so short of electricity that the whole country is switched off at 9 p.m. - apart from the capital of Pyongyang where dictator Kim Jong-il and his cohorts live in relative luxury. But even there, lighting is drastically reduced.
``The result, as shown in this picture taken one night earlier this week, is a startling contrast between the blacked-out north and the south, which is ablaze with light, particularly around major cities and the capital, Seoul, in the north-west of the country." (bold highlights mine)
Professor Don Boudreaux makes this fitting comment ``the Dear Leader – like his father before him – works tirelessly to keep his nation’s carbon footprint to a bare minimum; in fact, if you look carefully you can see what is likely his, and only his, office light glimmering in Pyongyang.
``North Koreans show their reverence for mother nature not with a mere Earth Hour but, rather, with an entire “Earth Lifetime.”
Earth Hour, in the mainstream perspective, means bringing back societal order to the medieval eon. It means socialism. Just ask North Korea's Kim.