In case you are in the dark, Earth Hour was conceived by the World Wildlife Fund Australia to raise awareness of global climate change, and to show that by working together people can make a difference. The cool concept became a reality last March 31, as 2.2-million well-intentioned Aussies, and 2,100 businesses in Sydney, flicked off their lights for one hour, reducing the city's energy consumption by 10.2 percent, the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road for 60 minutes.

This year, Earth Hour has gone global with major cities around the world participating, including Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Manila, Melbourne, Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal and the megalopolis of Moffat (pop: 19) where yours truly happens to reside. Earth Hour's lofty goal is to reduce carbon emissions to the equivalent level of taking 480,000 cars off our roadways for an hour.

Now, as someone who loves the planet, and who is frequently in the dark, I'm here to help you embrace (or, at very least, endure) Earth Hour. You see, living in the country, I have more than my fair share of experience living without lights. Power outages are a way of life up here in the middle of nowhere. Rarely does a month go by where we don't unexpectedly find ourselves in the dark, without lights, heat (or air conditioning in the summer), and without running water (actually, we fast learned that once the power goes kaput, you still get one free flush on each toilet before you run out of primed water, and luck).

Now, in the case of Earth Hour, we will have the distinct advantage of knowing when darkness will descend (since we'll be the ones purposely doing the darkening). Of course, the biggest problem with power outages is the lack of advance notice. Typically, they come just when you're sitting down to watch your favorite TV show, or when you have a roast in the oven, or, in my wife's case, when you're halfway through lathering your locks in the shower. One night last week our power died for no apparent reason just as we were preparing dinner (all food prep stopped cold!).

While I doubt we will ever enjoy a power outage, we have come to approach them with a certain co-operative pioneer spirit: one of us blindly stumbles off in search of candles, another staggers in search of matches, while another tracks down any of the innumerable flashlights with dead batteries that we keep handy about the house.

Overall, we've come to enjoy the feeling of roughing it, of getting back to nature the way God intended. We like sitting around the lit candles, wondering what to do with ourselves until our beloved power returns, wondering how long it will take for the house to completely cool off and for us to freeze to death. We like complaining together in loud, squawky unison until, like last week, one of us suggests a survival run to a (typically well-lit) Starbucks.

Okay, so maybe I don't have a whole lot of practical advice on how to embrace (or, at least, endure) Earth Hour. But I have faith that you'll take part. Because it's our planet, it's only one hour, and it's important. Like flossing your teeth and eating your vegetables.

Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajuniper@strangledeggs.com.