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Asense of purpose surged through my finger as I reached for the light switch to darken the long-life bulbs in my bedroom. It felt like a moment deserving of capital letters. This was Earth Hour (in rehearsal) and This Would Count.

A flick of the wrist and it was done. I grinned, chest puffing out with a modicum of self-congratulation. A moment later, I was still standing in my darker bedroom, only now I was squinting in the twilight. I waited one more heartbeat in case the angels' chorus was taking a while to reach Parkdale. Alas, no: Just the echo of my own rapidly deflating expectations.

The late-dusk light slunk into the room, cast a sheepish glance around and started dawdling back outside to join the night, leaving a mild sense of urgency in its wake.

Nothing was prepared; there weren't more than a couple of decorative candles and some half-used tea lights scattered throughout the house, and the light with which to find them was scampering for the hills.

It was time to call in the cavalry. I'd explained the lights-off training run to my fiancé shortly before 8 p.m., addressing his skepticism — "But we do that every night," he had said without looking up from his BlackBerry Sudoku game, "it's called going to bed" — with the explanation that turning off the lights for an hour was meant to increase people's awareness of power use in general and the Earth at large. The idea sounded tinny to my own ears. "But I'm going to up the ante a little and try not to use anything electricity- or battery-powered," I added, quickly jotting some notes while I still had 60-watt light.

Grabbing what candles we could find and finally locating the matches, we set up in the kitchen. I placed a candle on the countertop, but it was too far under the wall-mounted cupboard for his liking. "It's only going to be there for three minutes," I argued. "They're famous last words," chided the former police reporter.

Suitably reprimanded, I carried the candle and two glasses of whisky to the table, but any potential romance was defused by our analysis of the Earth Hour effort. It's not surprising that Earth Hour started in Australia, we agreed. It smacks of that wacky, try-anything-once attitude that explains many of the stranger news items emanating from Down Under.

But what is surprising is that Canada has leapt so much to its side, overtaking every other nation in the number of people who have registered online to switch off. "Canada has one of the highest rates of Internet usage," the fiancé proffered. Maybe everyone else was pledging to flick off too, they just weren't advertising it via the energy-eating Internet.

Or, I countered, maybe it's because social paradigm shifts no longer seem to revolve around just being good. "Everything has to be cool now too," I said. "You have to make some kind of event out of it, and then everyone joins the party."

Enter Earth Hour, a kind of hipster's wristband of environmental action. It's easy, it's fun and you can feel better about yourself without doing anything as arduous as changing your consumer lifestyle. But therein lies its genius, I begrudgingly concluded as I agonized over whether to make coffee. A tweak here, a flick-off there, and people really can make a difference.

We flitted across conversation topics, pausing to consider plans for the real Earth Hour and compare childhood blackout tales. I held the candle under my chin in an attempt to look scary and while away one more minute, but let out a mild yelp. "Ooh, that's really hot," I said. "Try leaving it there for three minutes," he countered with a grin.

With the hour almost up, I wandered off to the bathroom to discover the comical challenge of doing makeup by candlelight, simultaneously gaining a new respect for all pre-electricity beauty regimes while concocting excuses that I really was seeking a theatrically 1980s look. Even with two candles, this is hard to do.

Seeking a final verdict on my efforts, I headed back to the kitchen, only to discover the soft-lit ambience of that room was marred by the mild glow of the BlackBerry screen. I gasped in mock shock and challenged the power usage of the hand-held while internally promising to do penance during the real Earth Hour for having put the kettle on moments ago.

"The power was plugged in before," my partner said defensively, his Sudoku game almost finished. Then he looked up with a sly grin. "So, if I'm already busted, does that mean I can keep playing?"