Oh dear. It’s a sad state of affairs when Australia’s quality newspaper keeps misleading its readers after a mistake has been pointed out. It could make you think the mistake was deliberate in the first place.

Not only is there no correction in the SMH about the false reports that its Earth Hour campaign reduced carbon emissions, the fib is repeated by implication:

Energy Australia calculated that electricity use in the CBD was cut by 10.2 per cent during the lights-out hour on Saturday night, with 48,760 kWh of electricity saved – the same amount needed to run more than 800,000 60-watt light bulbs for one hour.

As we reported yesterday, no electricity was “saved” — unused electricity isn’t boxed and placed in warehouses or left buzzing around the powerlines waiting for a big night out next Saturday. Consumption of electricity in NSW dipped a fraction, 1.7%, but generation (and therefore carbon emissions) remained the same.

That must be an inconvenient truth for the SMH. Editor Alan Oakley didn’t return our call yesterday or before today’s Crikey deadline.