Given the thousands of comments made here weekly, I’ve decided to add a new feature to WUWT: Quote of the Week. It will be posted on Sundays.
A commenter on WUWT summed up Earth Hour in a succinct way:
I will be thinking about the 1.8 billion people on Earth who have no access to electricity, and how insane they must think we are.
From commenter “007” on the WUWT Poll: What are you going to do for “Earth Hour”? thread.
Anyone that wants to submit a better feature logo that the simple one I cobbled together above is certainly welcome to do so. – Anthony
“Well, maybe more that we are insanely hypocritical, since the purpose of Earth Hour seems to be to reassure all those people without electricity that they really don’t need it because WE can do without it for a whole hour”
Except of course WE don’t because even when we sit in the candle-light, electric pumps are still filling our toilet cistern and supplying water for our latte which in most cases electricity is also boiling as well as heating more water for our nightly shower.
Sublimely ignorant is generally as relevant as insanely hypocritical.
Well done, Anthony.
WUWT continues to be the best blog on the Internet bar none.
I’m sure that fact alone drives the Warmers crazy.
Excellent first selection!
It really does say many different things all at once.
The slogan of modern environmentalists (and probably Earth Hour) is “Save the Earth.” Nancy Pelosi says it’s her job to “Save the Earth.” Does anyone know exactly what it is we have to do to save the Earth and by what measure are we to use to know when it has been saved? This is not a silly rhetorical question since untold sums of money are being poured into environmental causes and regulations without the faintest idea of what the goal is.
What is it with modern liberalism and “symbolic actions”? Turning off lights, kayak trips to nowhere, parading around with puppets, and throwing paint on things they disapprove of. Liberalism has become a creed of form over function. These symbolic acts have become the 21st Century’s version of indulgences. I make a gesture and then I can drink my latte feeling smug about how socially conscious I am. Of course the rest of us have to adhere to the rules they pronounce because we’re not part of the chosen and are living in sin with our incandescent lights.
The people who turned their lights off are intellectually in the dark!
Mr. Lynn; There is a limit on what we can extract from Solar System resources. Gravity. Putting anything in Earth orbit costs from $1000.00 to 10,000.00 per pound, depending on how much of the infrastructure costs you add to the fuel costs. The last I heard, the cost of moving anything from planet to planet would make shipping cut diamonds a losing proposition.
Here’s a quick one I knocked up Anthony.
http://users.beagle.com.au/geoffsharp/quote.jpg
Posters already give props to good posts. Tabulating poll results is just another chore for which Anthony has no time, I’m willing to bet.
I only suggested including a few ‘finalists’ because in the course of a week there are several gems posted and it seems like choosing one best quote of the week would be tough. It would be nice to see the contenders from which Anthony makes his final pick.
Which sounds like just another chore for Anthony. Nothing to stop us posting our own favourites on the weekly thread.
John in NZ (17:39:30) :
Do the quotes have to come from WUWT?
Daniel Hannan, MEP for South East England, recently said to Gordon Brown,(posted on ICECAP)
“You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.”
” There is no crisis capitalism cannot buy it’s way out of, providing the workers are willing to pay.”
– Lenin –
Smokey said in reply to me
“Why only $50,000? Anthony could offer a prize of one million dollars: click”
Good idea-it will remind us of the dangers of treating money as a political tool-might be some lessons for those spending trillions on climate research-espercially as the science is settled. Perhps quote of the week could go to Einstein?
“If we knew what we were doing it wouldnt be called research.”
Tonyb
Philip_B (18:13:14),
My sentiments exactly! WUWT is, by far, the “Best Science” site in the intertubes, It makes Realclimate a fourth-rate runner-up.
If RC allowed differing points of view without censorship, it would start to achieve credibility. Hasn’t happened yet, though.
@tallbloke (22:20:53) :
“Which sounds like just another chore for Anthony. Nothing to stop us posting our own favourites on the weekly thread.”
Oooo… good point. Your suggestion kills all the polar bears with one shot, so to speak.
That’s true now. But the cost is coming down, as we speak (and as private companies compete for launch business). Cheap access to low-Earth orbit has to be a high priority, especially for Americans, if we are to preserve the spirit of the frontier—which spirit, of course, the neo-Marxists and neo-Luddites are eager to squelch (turning out the lights is the perfect metaphor for their retrograde ambitions).
There are lots of interesting ideas for low-cost access to space floating around. Piggy-back launches, like Burt Rutan’s Spaceship One. Mass driver technology—I think it was Heinlein who proposed a miles-long chute in the Himalayas, giving ships a hefty boost in the direction the Earth spins. Then there’s the Space Elevator, a concept popularized by the late Arthur C. Clarke; even NASA is interested.
One way or another, we’ll bring the cost down, if we aren’t hamstrung by greenies and politicians. The resources are there (read John Lewis’s Mining the Sky). Mars is waiting to be settled, and maybe the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, too. “The sky’s the limit!”
/Mr Lynn
Anthony, Here are a couple of possible headers for QOW, if you want any specific size, or a more horizontal layout, you can have whatever you want.
http://i40.tinypic.com/ng4xz8.jpg http://i44.tinypic.com/148ljzm.jpg
Anthony, Here is one with similar components, but scaled to your header size.
http://i42.tinypic.com/2rp718g.jpg
Anthony,
I humbly submit the following. It’s the least I can do.
http://www.kane-tv.com/wuwt/qotw_full.jpg
or
http://www.kane-tv.com/wuwt/qotw_cropped.jpg
B.
Quote of the week is a fine idea but there is so much more to go at. Though I have to admit that with so much material it could make a significant dent in available time (!).
Tenuous GW linkages, snouts in the Government pork dispenser, wild and wacky schemes, bogus science, statistical manipulations, bong driven green “workshops” …. the list is endless (and could very easily reach a “tipping point”)
Although GW provides by far the biggest target there are others. I was browsing around the “shrimp ate my experiment” story on NS when this caught my attention.
It does have a certain “Scientists accidentally create 150 foot killer Octopus” ring about it but quote value alone must be worth something…
They could be awarded in categories (I’m sure the intrepid readership can come up with something)
Pork recipes …
Polar Bears ate my Radar
The glue dissolved my model
Just look what we’ve done to Venus
Just a thought.
DJ: you win the nonsense prize. [snip]
I liked all the suggestions for the header for the quote, but boudu’s has got to win. It is just too wonderful
Anthony, can we have a competition for logo of the month for quote of the week. 🙂
REPLY: I’ll consider it
“Anthony, can we have a competition for logo of the month for quote of the week. :)”
I am partial to the picture of Al Gore with flame shooting out of his mouth like a blowtorch.
This one
My submission for the Members of the WUWT Academy to consider: from 3/30/09, (Earth Hour a Bust or Success)
Mike Bryant (18:26:10) :
“Roger,
It is funny and sad that the government does not have the science right to be able to properly “adjust the pressure on a hot tire.” But they DO know how to adjust the earth’s thermostat by controlling CO2.
The clowns have taken over the circus. — Mike”
Every year I am assured of at least 1 power out but usually 2 or 3 that last anywhere from a day to 3 days. I have many lifetimes of Earth hours saved up. Maybe I should raffle off a day here without electricity to the local greenies. I have a well so without power, no water. As well as no heat and when it is 0 to minus 20, that is not fun. The wood stove works but wood just doesn’t make it overnight. I end up sleeping on the floor near the wood stove a) because it is warmer and b) to wake up every so often and stick more logs in the stove. I can heat water for coffee on the wood stove and heat up soup but that is it for cooking. And no shower unless I wanted to go outside and drag in buckets of cold water, same with the toilet. It is a bad way to exist and I am glad I have never had to do it longer than 3 days. However my sister in the UK tells me “we didn’t used to have electicity, we can do that again” Not here you can’t and I don’t think so even in the UK.