After starting in one city, Earth Hour grew into a global event and spurred millions to change their habits to save the planet.
The landslide of furious facts and figures, questions and retorts since the announcement of Australia's plans to put a price on pollution has been immense.
Multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns have begun duelling on our airwaves and in our newspapers.
For many, this barrage of noise – with its claims and counter-claims – has resulted in a small amount of hope and a large serving of confusion.
How will the price on pollution work? Who will pay? Will it help protect our environment?
If you can get past the ''chicken little'' rhetoric, which is swamping what should be a sensible discussion about our future, one thing becomes clear — making Australia's 500 biggest polluting companies pay to pump waste into our air is a good and necessary step.
They may claim the sky is falling, but history has shown over again that business will always play tough when there is the possibility of winning compensation for their efforts.
Putting a price on pollution means we're raising the cost of doing nothing about the problem and will finally create a financial incentive to change old habits and old technologies.
The idea is not nearly as radical as many would portray it. In fact, households and industries have long paid a price to have their rubbish removed. Now those who contribute most to Australia's pollution levels will have to do the same.
Despite the political theatre and scaremongering, Australia's efforts to reduce pollution and tackle climate change have not been led by government nor by business. In fact, both are now simply playing catch-up.
On environmental issues, including climate change, the public is often streets ahead of business. For that matter, we are often ahead of governments too.
It was the millions of people all over the country switching out their lights for one hour that made Earth Hour a watershed moment in the fight against climate change.
Business saw the success of the campaign and threw its support behind it. This support helped the campaign grow again, turning a local event into a global movement.
In the space of five years, we've grown Earth Hour from one city in Australia, to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
This simple action has inspired people to go beyond the hour and do whatever they can to reduce their impact on our planet. Millions of tiny changes have added up, and helped make living sustainably one of the highest aspirations we have.
Australia has shown that it can make a difference on the world stage. We should never underestimate our power to change the world we live in.
Now that we are putting a price on air pollution, some businesses have a lot of catching up to do. However, they need to know that we expect more from them in the future, not less.
Does that mean our personal actions don't matter? No. Far from it.
The new package announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard sets a target for Australia to reduce its pollution by at least 5 per cent over the next eight years. This is setting the bar about as low as it could go. Australia will not struggle to meet that target, given the large-scale investment in clean energy and the incentive of paying $23 per tonne for any pollution that can't be avoided.
This will shift some of the burden on to big business, meaning they will have a lot of heavy lifting to do. In the long run, it will be cheaper for them to start tackling the problem now rather than later – a message that seems to have been lost on some.
Households also have a role to play in our combined efforts to tackle climate change and protect our environment. Every individual action taken by Australians to reduce pollution will be an important addition to whatever industry does.
Despite what some naysayers claim, the choices each of us make – how we get around, the products we buy, the food we eat, the way we invest our superannuation – can have a huge impact.
Often these small changes don't just help our environment, but also make us healthier and happier people.
We have already shown that Australians can lead and push business and governments into action. Now is our chance to build on that success.
In 2012, Earth Hour will reach more than 1 billion people, showing once again that a small idea and a simple action can make a big difference.
Let's not adhere to the false comfort of thinking someone else will do the job for us.
Every little bit counts – and we will need all the help we can get to tackle this global problem.
Dermot O'Gorman is chief executive of WWF.
Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU
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