Earth Hour Paradox

We try to be ecologically conscious, so while I applaud the idea of Earth Hour, I'm also a little frustrated by the whole "turn off the lights for an hour and save the world" message. Really I'd rather people try something (for more than an hour) that they can incorporate into their everyday lives (recycling for example).

Anyway, all that said, we (unconsciously) participated in an Earth Hour paradox at our house. I totally forgot that Earth Hour was tonight. Most of our lights (out of habit) were turned off, but all evening I was doing laundry in hot water and drying it on high heat. Why might I be doing such an environmentally unfriendly activity you might ask, because I was prepping cloth diapers (unbleached cotton has to be stripped of its oils in 6 prewashes before it becomes absorbent). We aren't only using cloth diapers because of environmental reasons, but I do have to admit that when I realized that I'd spent all of Earth Hour running our washer and dryer at maximum carbon output, I felt a little guilty. Not guilty enough to abandon cloth diapers and throw a disposable diaper in a landfill for 500+ years, but still a little guilty. At least I was consuming large quantities of electricity during the ultimate off peak time.