Posted on 03/25/2011 11:35:54 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Earth Hour: A Dissent
Ross McKitrick
In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour. Here is my response.
I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity. Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading. Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water. Many of the world's poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases. Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that's how the west developed.
The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity. Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour ...
(Excerpt) Read more at rossmckitrick.weebly.com ...
Having lived through the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd and other major hurricanes, I only have to add:
Yep. Well said.
This is a high energy day for those who aren't members of the church of earth worship. This is the day we light up the sky. It's a freedom celebration.
My wife asked me if I turn off the water when I brush my teeth. I said "I do, but I am not 'saving' any water by doing so. Saving it from what?"
Celebrate! Create a stink - literally.
Me too.
As an added insult to the greenies, I make sure the stereo is blasting “Electric Avenue” as loud as it can.
At my house, Christmas lights are my wife’s hobby/passion. Due to the weather, 18 of our outdoor trees still have lights up.
Hmmmm.... I have an idea for that hour. My lib neighbors should enjoy the view. LOL
I agree completely. The Greens insist on focusing only on the costs of electricity generation, ignoring the benefits as somehow beneath the enlightened. One notes with some dismay that their principal means of promulgating this odd, evangelical doctrine is over electronic devices powered by coal and constructed by large corporations.
Darkening the planet for an hour strikes me as one of those silly and futile gestures that darkness-worshiping shamans use to propitiate their presumably angry gods. It is, one supposes, an improvement over throwing virgins into a volcano but only in degree, not in kind.
It’s 8:30 local, whatever time zone you’re in.
Thanks for the reminder. I need to remember to turn all lights on, leave the TVs on and maybe ride around in the SUV for a while.
I remember my school sent a email out for earth hour 2009, urging students to shut off lights, TV’s, computers and basically sit in the dark for a hour. It was a total failure as no campus lights were shut off, for security, and every dorm room look lit up as normal.
At 8.30 PM, 26 March 2011, lights go on, engines run, horns toot, and smokers smoke.
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I am a more private person than that. But the lights will be on, and I will run an electric grinder on some non-organic, non-fair trade coffee while the PC is running.
When the smug jerks start posting self-congratulatory messages of their grand contributions to this noble event on Facebook and other social forums, I will remind them of all the network devices and computers that had to use energy just so they could demonstrate their piety to the rest of us.
Thanks for posting the the transcript. I heard Rush read it and it almost sounded like something Rush would write.
Don’t forget to burn a tire!
; )
That is my 11 yr old’s bugaboo. She says that whether you poo in it, pee in it or run it down the drain, eventually it will evaporate, and come back as rain. It does not go to another planet after it goes into the sewers.
Last year I ran so much I tripped my 200 amp main breaker.
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