MCFly 045- Earth Hour: Can't Manchester City Council even get the empty gestures right?

Last year Manchester City Council made a right horlicks of participating in "Earth Hour," the WWF organised empty-gesture around energy reduction. The MEN (March 30 2009) quoted City centre spokesman Coun Pat Karney as saying: "Poor marks for Manchester, we have let the side down. Most of us were probably more preoccupied with putting the clocks forward that with Earth Hour, which saw many other city centres across the world dramatically plunged into darkness.
"It's a possibility that it wasn't well enough publicised in the city. I only started reading about it about a day or two before it was happening and I'm sure the majority of people had no idea it was happening. We can only apologise to the rest of the world and make sure we make a better effort next year."
The Call to Real Action report suggested making it a monthly event- "Manchester Hour". The Council ignored this (and a host of other practical suggestions). And for 2010? Well, excluding an email sent on Friday 26th from Manchester is My Planet (will someone please explain why these wastes of carbon and money still exist?) what publicity was there? Manchester was 76th out of 108 counties for participation! "A better effort next year"? Maybe next year, eh? Not like it's an emergency or anything...