Turn Out the Lights and the Party's Over

You may remember the symbolic and completely useless gesture earlier this year when the lights of the Eiffel Tower were shut off for five whole minutes as a gesture toward reducing global warming. Al Gore thought he'd do that one better by getting all the viewers for his upcoming Live Earth concert to shut off their power. Not so fast, Al:

It was intended to be the symbolic gesture at a global series of rock concerts next month to alert people to climate change. Al Gore, the former US presidential candidate turned climate doomsayer, had wanted a massive switch-off of lights by television audiences, but the National Grid has vetoed the idea.

The inconvenient truth, it says, is that the power surge when people switched their lights back on could cause disruptions in supply and even endanger hospital patients on life support machines.

And he wanted to be my president....