AN INCONVENIENT TROUT, Gulf Stream, Saturday (NTN) — Today for Earth Hour, people around the world will “show their concern for the environment” as a substitute for doing anything that would actually help stop Earth from turning into Venus.

The campaign started in Sydney in 2007, when more than two million people turned off their lights and lit candles instead, producing a far greater aggregate mass of carbon dioxide in the process.

“It’s important to do our bit for the world,” said project director Kirsten Hodgson. “I won’t be updating Twitter until half past nine. I went around and made sure all the mobile phone power bricks were unplugged too. That saved 0.02p of electricity right there! Tonight I’ll be doing spreadsheets on my new computer working out our carbon footprint, which is the most direct action I can think of to stop methane release from the Siberian permafrost.”

In the Philippines, Roman Catholic bishops said they would urge the faithful to preserve natural resources from 8:30PM. “There’s no reason not to feel completely at ease in darkness with a priest.”

Critics of Earth Hour have called it “feel-good” and “tokenistic.” “Clearly dupes of Big Oil,” said Ms Hodgson, “in raging denial. They might as well be strangling those baby seals with their own hands. Cute baby seals! I bet they didn’t join our Facebook group either.”

Polar bears, people whose houses had been destroyed by extreme weather and Pacific islanders whose ancestral homes had been flooded out of existence were incredibly grateful for Earth Hour and its show of all-important awareness and solidarity. “’Cos any actually structurally useful changes to profligate Western lifestyles are clearly well out of the fucking question.”