It used to be my father, now it's me.

Years ago, when I lived with my parents, my father would switch off the lights at home that were not needed, usually left on by the heedless amongst the family like myself. Now I do it in my house. I read somewhere that Queen Elizabeth does it in Buckingham Palace. It appears to be an abiding ritual hardwired into the oldest person in a household. Without doubt it was a money saving exercise on my father's part "money doesn't grow on trees" after all - and there is an element of that in my behaviour as well. But there is more.

Global warming and climate change are real threats to the stable future of our planet. I have kids and I want them to have a planet as good as I had, and I want their kids to have it too. This will only happen if we change our habits and making those changes should start now.

We have already reduced our ecological footprint a little as part of a house renovation a couple of years ago - rainwater tanks piped to the toilets, wide eaves, heat sink flooring for catching the winter sun, instant gas hot water rather than preheated storage. There's more we could do without a doubt but that is a start. I would love to go solar but the costs are prohibitive at the moment - the Australian government should be heavily underwriting domestic solar power rather than considering building massive infrastructure for more coal and nuclear power plants

In a world first the World Wildlife Fund is organising the Earth Hour in Sydney during March 2007 - an hour in which they are encouraging everybody, residential and corporate, to switch off all lights for 60 minutes from 7.30pm on 31 March. The aim is to reduce the city's greenhouse gas pollution. I like this idea, switch off those lights, make it a habit.