Every year at Christmas, many newspapers reprint “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus“, this excellent essay by Ross McKittrick should be repeated on every blog on every observance of Earth Hour. Copy, paste, and share it widely. A poll on what you plan to do to observe this event follows.
The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity. – Ross McKitrick
Earth Hour: A Dissent
by Ross McKitrick
Image via Wikipedia
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 devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity.
People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too.
I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.
Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry and the power supply.
If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children who have been caught doing something bad, then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations.
No thanks.
I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its tradeoffs is something to be ashamed of.
Ross McKitrick
Professor of Economics
University of Guelph
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UPDATE: MSNBC is running a similar poll here. It seem “Human Achievement Hour” has been noticed.
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Brilliant Ross McKitrick, very elegantly said.
I have forwarded to my local Congressional rep. although she is a lost cause. Also to my state assemblyman, another lost cause. Does the consent given above allow me to include Ross’s essay in a letter to the editor of our local fish wrap aka newspaper with credit, of course?
Thanks.
So many people have different ideas about what earth hour is supposed to mean. I think Prof. McKitrick is spot on. We should be reveling in thankfulness for the blessing of electricity. Let our light shine in thankfulness.
And should we shut off our electricity if we want to show our concern for those without electricity? I think the line from “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran sums up my feelings: “But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.”
archonix says:
March 31, 2012 at 4:28 am
Speaking as an electrician, if your electrics aren’t designed to cope with having everything on then they’re functionally inadequate and consequently dangerous. An older house can be forgiven for having inadequate wiring but anything built in the last 15 years should have been designed to provide enough slack for every room to have all its lights on and a major appliance running in each one. It’s simple safety; more to the point it’s written in the regs, and I stick to those particular regs like glue because I don’t want my work causing house fires.
——————————-
In Canada the CEC section 8 applies demand factors as low as 10% in system sizing. This is based on the concept that it would be unlikely and difficult to use all circuits at full load at the same time. The design is based on normal operation with a safety factor. Many outlets are provided for convenience but the wiring cannot supply every one at full output simultaneously.
A deliberate effort to fully load every circuit and outlet will definitely overload the system. Overcurrent devices should prevent any damage.
***The very real danger is that there may be loose or corroded connections or devices that could cause damage and fire. Also severe thermal cycling can cause loosening of lugs and buss connections leading to a fire later.
Canadian house wiring is definitely NOT “designed to cope with having everything on”. Stress testing your wiring to make a political point is as dumb as Earth Hour.
Well stated Ross.
Few people realize just how much civilization is dependent on energy. The biggest difference between Eurasia and the Americas in development is strong beasts of burden (and the wheel).
With the attack not only on energy but also on the use of animals such as oxen (cows) it would seem these idiots want to drive us back to the same level of civilization as American Indians. I sure hope they are good at flintknapping
There is another advantage to the liquid salt cooled reactors that Gail Combs discussed above (Gail Combs says: March 31, 2012 at 10:39 am.) They can be located close to the customer such as a city, industrial facility, etc. thereby reducing the significant transmission line loss in the regional power grids.
Well said and I agree with one quibble: why do we position ourselves outside of nature? Beavers build a dam, nature at work. Man builds a dam, a cancer on the face of the earth. Surely we are as much a part of nature as a beaver and that makes our creations part of nature. This planet is the way it is strictly because of nature and that includes human beings and the things we do (which frankly to me seem an improvement over the way things would be without man).
If the RF spectrum (RADAR) was converted to light, the borders of NK and the area around Pyongyang would look like Las Vegas.
You sir, are awesome.
All of the infantile cry babies should go live in the third world. Indeed, I have. Try waking up in -20C and starting a fire. Try hauling water from a well, warming it up and bathing in your tent with it.
[SNIP: We’re not going to encourage that, even as satire or sarcasm. -REP]
Do as I say, not as I do. Stroke my ego, make me feel good.
squid2112 says:
March 31, 2012 at 7:38 am
I’m terribly sorry, but I just have to laugh every time I hear some dipsh1t say “save electricity”. Save electricity? for what? a raining day? One would be hard pressed to say anything more stupid.
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Same here !!
When I hear those same dipsh1ts say we need to save petro for the next generation , I ask “Why, are they going to save it for their next generation?”
It’s a resource !!
Use the darn stuff !!
Good article Ross. Thank you.
I have worked much of my career in the Canadian and international energy industry.
Occasionally, some imbecile will attack me and the energy industry, as evil doers who are destroying the planet.
I respond that the energy industry keeps him and his family from freezing and starving to death.
It is true – shut down the energy industry and few people would remain alive in Canada, the Northern USA or Northern Europe.
In our specialized modern society, everything from heating our homes to our food supply is dependent on the energy industry.
Allowing ignorant politicians to dictate energy strategy is like letting your four-year-old drive your car. Happy Motoring!
The night satellite photo of the Korean peninsula overlays a larger map;
this appears to add further dark areas in major Japanese metropolitan areas.
Here is a tighter cropping that carries the same message without compromise:
http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/108308/enlarge
An entire series for the globe can be found at:
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=55167
The losses aren’t what you think they might be; not remotely ‘significant’. Engineering plays a part in this (maybe a surprise to the armchair quarterbacks in the group!) through the choice of operating parameters, such as keeping ohmic losses low through the use of low current flows which then necessitates the use of a proportionally higher voltage for a given amount of ‘power’ to be transferred.
Still, the placement of facilities like a liquid-salt Th reactor might require placement near rail facilities (given the size and weight of components for a commercial-scale plant equipment; not everything can be brought in by truck over weight-limited vehicular roadways), and might require a contiguous land ‘footprint’ not available within an established metropolitan area, never mind the objections by that segment of population whose MO is outright rejection of anything even remotely ‘nuke’.
.
I thoroughly enjoyed this the first time I read this back when Mr. Mckittrick originally wrote it. It is as excellent now as it was then.
I saw on the MSNBC (Moron State News Broadcast Company) link that the ISS is going to observe earth hour…what a pathetic and ignorant waste of tax payer dollars to achieve manned space flight and actually live in space (even LEO) and then pretend that we must shut off the lights to demonstrate some moronic care for an unfeeling unknowing gaia? Idiocy.
i notice on the map how north korea is almost pitch dark with the exception of the tiny area around its capitol, and see how well lit south korea is but i also notice many lights off the coast of south korea and recall reading about the russins drilling some very deep water oil wells for them, could there be that many oil wells there to provide that much light? and if so the russians are quietly drilling for and extracting oil that is non organic and know other oil people told the koreans there was no oil there.
“Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness.” I.e. “greenness”.
By that definition, North Korea is either the greenest country around… or the coldest. Without power, their soul source of heat is wood. According to a U.K. study last year:
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2011112693788
It would be interesting to know what the effects of the massive deforestation has been on their climate.
From Gerard Vanderluen at American Digest
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/intellectually_insane/the_lights_are.php
Click to Fade
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God’s last Put out the Light was spoken.
— Robert Frost, “Once By The Pacific”
In 1914 Sir Edward Grey said to a friend one evening just before the outbreak of the First World War, as he watched the lights being lit on the street below his office: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
In that instance, it was the Great War that loomed. Now the Great Forgetting looms and, from time to time, it washes across the world. “Earth Hour” is such a dark moment as millions either choose to, or thanks to their compliant or complacent local governments suffer through, an hour in the dark.
Once upon a time we knew enough to curse the darkness. In the aeons long climb from the muck, we have only had the ability to hold back the dark for a bit over a century. Now millions yearn to embrace it and, should they yearn long enough and hard enough, the darkness will embrace them and hold them for much longer than a brief hour of preening and self-regard.
The Big Picture at the Boston Globe site routinely publishes stunning photographs of what is taking place in the world. But at editor Alan Taylor’s whim after last year’s “Earth Hour”, it went a step further in “celebrating” the rise of mass insanity in our age. “Earth Hour 2009” presents a round-the-world tour of cities with each picture designed to fade from light into darkness at the click of a mouse. Proud of his clever variation on a theme, the editor’s instructions were — without a hint of irony:
“[click image to see it fade]”
Of course with a second mouse click the lights came back on. It never seems to occur to the people with the Green Disease, that is perfectly possible to
[click civilization to see it fade]
and get no second click.
“Pater dimitte illis non enim sciunt quid faciunt.” (“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”) — Luke 23:34
[Republished from 2009 because it’s not worth spending new powder. And because I can’t believe I almost forgot it was the sacred “Earth Hour.” Oh, you did as well? Typical.]
Vanderleun : March 31, 12
Here’s the link to the photo essay he references
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/earth_hour_2009.html
@Ross McKitrick
” …
I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, …”
Emphatically second that!
One of the signs of human prosperity is the ability to get so much for so little. Earth Hour finished a less than an hour ago here in the UK. I decided to celebrate by seeing how much electricity I could consume without wasting, but by running everyday activities concurrently. My family of four has had the electric oven (with the Sunday roast), dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, iron, two PCs, a laptop and a 32″ television all running for an hour, as well as maybe ten light bulbs. The result was 4.2kwh of electricity usage. The maximum usage of all these things is nearer 15kw, so why the discrepancy? Human ingenuity, has created highly efficient devices. The oven only uses peak power for short periods, then maintains that power. The new washing machine uses around half the power of my old one purchased 20 years ago, and the dryer (with heat exchanger) less than a third of the old conventional one purchased 10 years ago. The iron is the same. They do this by using peak power in short bursts, and waste the heat less. Some will say that is a result of carbon credits and carbon taxes. They would be more than 90% wrong. Efficiency is spurred on by higher costs (the biggest of which is the recent rise in the oil price), but even if there were no rising energy taxes or oil prices, then incentives of getting more for less is still there.
Vince Causey says:
March 31, 2012 at 9:06 am
“Folks,
Some posters are trying to re-invent Earth hour as something harmless and inoccuous.
Most people, including Ross and myself, are under the impression that the idea behind switching everything off for an hour was meant as an act of contrition – similar to the acts of penance meeted out by the Catholic Church; making attonement; reflecting on the harm of your ways; showing solidarity with the “planet”.”
Thank you Vince for putting it so clear.
Where would we be without electrical energy? All our civilisation is based on energy.
To barry (barry says above: March 31, 2012 at 8:34 am)
yes, resources are finite but with human inventivity we have done much to expand and increase our finite resources. We have options, viable options like Thorium and gas which can guarantee us and our children a good life. With help of technology we have moved away from the hard life that some 20% of the world population still have to endure without electricity.
There is no catastrophe that we bring to our world improving our lives. Quite the contrary, all countries which have managed to pass the energy threshold have their population under control, only slowly increasing or decreasing without any need for draconic rules, have greatly improved their environment, can take care and spend time and money on nature and can even help the not so lucky ones which still live under energy poverty.
The celebration of the energy hour is much more important. Look at North Korea and try to understand.
_Jim says:
March 31, 2012 at 1:36 pm
“The losses aren’t what you think they might be; not remotely ‘significant’.”
A very interesting assertion. From everything I’ve seen transmission and distribution losses, even though improving, still account for much more than the entire generation contribution from nonhydro renewables. I guess there is a case to be made that neither is really “significant.”
It is amusing to me that if one is using the combined
Mozilla/Bing interface, the screen they show today is
the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night.
Ross cites the problem of deforestation in a powerless world.
The Hansen-endorsed hypothesis of William Ruddiman is that deforested lands are hotter. Whatever effect CO2 has on climate and temperature, forests do tend to be cooler places. Beyond the humanitarian reasons that Ross cites, one might expect “greens” to prefer an “energized” North Korea to “save the planet” from warming. (More forests gobble up the evil CO2, and hence cool the world.) Another point worth making: the wealthier the average people of any state grow, the more stable and predictable that nation becomes. Of course, the future of North Korea has til now lain in the hands of their autocratic leaders. If the “dear leader” wants backwardness and dependency, they’ve proven they can maintain that debased state. Unless the new Kim turns out to be wiser than the last, another generation of North Koreans may live and die in the dark in that awful place.
In the interest of saving the Earth, might I propose that ‘Dearth Hour’ by followed by Un-Invent the Wheel Hour? With additional follow-on displays of collective stupidity, Humanity can have one enormous flask of Kool-ade that will undoubtedly ‘save The Planet’.
This morning i was driving my car to work and the news on the radio mentioned the “earth hour” issue. When they mentioned that we do this to ‘save the earth’ i almost hit a tree..