Video follows.
On the evening of Saturday, March 23, people around the world are being asked by activists to switch off the lights for an hour to observe “Earth Hour”. Bjørn Lomborg says this gesture will do little to help the planet, and gives people the wrong impression about how to address climate issues. (See related WUWT post here)
Earth Hour is not the answer. Taken to its logical conclusion, if switching the lights off for one hour is a good idea, why not for all the other 8,759 hours of the year?
Electricity, and affordable, plentiful energy, is the lifeblood of modern civilization and prosperity. If you do switch off the lights, do it in solidarity with the 1.3 billion people in the world who live in cold and misery because they lack access to electricity. Do it to celebrate the benefits of innovation and technology.
Electricity has been a boon for humanity. And the cozy candles that many participants will light, which seem so natural and environmentally friendly, are still fossil fuels (paraffin comes from petroleum) —and almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs.
Fundamentally, cutting emissions in the short run is no easy task. Today, green energy is too costly to be a viable solution. Real breakthroughs in energy technology will only come with more investment in research and development.
Read the full commentary on Slate . Translations in 6 languages are distributed worldwide and available at Project Syndicate http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/earth-hour-s-counterproductive-symbolism-by-bj-rn-lomborg
Here is the official Earth Hour video. Note the use of candles along with other imagery, designed to tug at emotional heartstrings.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
DO I really want to show solidarity to / with nutters?
Earth Hour will be white in Boulder, CO where proof of global warming is piling up.
http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/webcam/index.htm
Another excellent example of muddled thinking…Right up there with those yobs who recently started breaking the windows of the offices of paediatricians in the sublimely-stupid belief that paediatricians were the same as paedophiles.
I think Earth Hour is a good thing.
If you have kids, turn off all electrical devices, including the heating, TV, internet, lights, mobiles, toys etc: Then, as you shiver under duvets and play cards by candle-light, explain that this is how the Greens want you to spend every day and night – and to imagine what it would be like, in the very middle of winter.
That would be a jolly good lesson for the pampered children of the 21st century.
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To those in the developing world, switching off proves that we in the developed world have choices. We have the choice to prove what idiots individuals can be. Those in the undeveloped world won’t even know. Prosperity and advancement should rejoiced, not demonised.
jr
so it’s hockey night in Canada, and here in the US we are in the middle of March madness. Yeah, i’ll worry about earth hour later, too. Go Jayhawks.
Its been imposed here without choice, as vast swathes of the UK are without power due to heavy snow drifts
http://t.news.uk.msn.com/uk/uk-endures-more-horrendous-weather
Here you go Ron Richey.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/13/climategate-3-0-has-occurred-the-password-has-been-released/
Spent a couple of hours clearing snow from our street early this morning. Later, I watched others do likewise. Puny is the strength of man compared to machines. They worked to clear tiny amounts of snow with each shovel, until at last, small patches of tarmac were revealed.
I called my son (age 10) over, and asked him to imagine a bulldozer working to clear the same road, and how the whole job would have been completed within a couple of minutes, to do that which several humans would take a day to do.
I thought this was a good illustration of how our use of fossil fuels has leveraged the power of humans to give us everything we see around us, and how miserable our lives would be if we were armed only with shovels.
Earth hour! Give me a break. Today’s eco activists are the spoilt children of an energy based system that has coddled them with such comforts, embued their lives with such safety and ease, that they exhibit not gratitude but contempt.
As with every year, I shall be celebrating Human Achievement Hour tonight. Perfect time to use the self-clean feature on the oven, do some laundry, turn on some lights….and hell, I might fire up the outdoor hot tub for a soak. The sheeple can have their Earth Hour. Me? I choose civilization.
“On the evening of Saturday, March 23, people around the world are being asked by activists to switch off the lights for an hour to observe “Earth Hour”. ”
For us D-worders, I plan to turn on extra lights, including 12 pairs of outside flood lights, from Dusk to Dawn.
Save a tree, make more CO2.
I’ll utilize Earth Hour by having all my lights on in honor of Nikola Tesla.
Reblogged this on News Avalanche.
Well, I just did a quick scan, and didn’t see anything on CNN, Reuters, or Google News front-news pages, so if even those perveyers of news didn’t highlight it, what does that tell you?
BBC did have this though.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21909619
I think the headline misspelled “dims”. I think it should be spelled with a “u” instead of an “i”.
Tell the bozos no more Rock n Roll or any other uses of electricity in the creation of music….. Rap and Hip Hop, all musical styles of the past 50 years which utilize electronic sound amplification, mixing, etc.
Because once more people understand how much they love the outputs of electricity there may be more understanding of how silly it is to demonize electricity.
Three cheers for electrical power…which I have needed all day here in North Yorkshire in order to read and see enough in the kitchen to cook the lunch (in an electric oven). I just hope there are no real power cuts, as have been suffered by others in parts of the UK thanks to the snow and gales. Not much snow just here but it’s very cold. It’s beginning to feel like Narnia!
We had a nearly 12-hour string of “Earth Hours” not too long ago here in NH during one of several Nor’Easters which dumped lots of the white stuff on us. We were without electricity all day (fortunately, not very cold), and until about 9PM or so. So yeah, we’ve already done our penance to the Greenie gods for living in a developed country, with all the trappings of a modern life, and then some. We did the whole candles and flashlights routine, even cooking (lighting the gas stove with a lighter) and eating by candlelight. It got a little chilly, but not bad (about 59F). We had no way of knowing when the power would come back on though, which was troubling. To be safe, we emptied the freezer part of the refrigerator into a cooler, putting that outside, and transferring the ice blocks we keep in the freezer into the lower part. Although I’ve considered getting a generator, this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often, and power is usually restored within a 12 hour period. I’ll admit, it does make you really appreciate electricity after being without it for a while. The price of electricity has been going up (with a fairly big jump recently), though, and we all know whose fault that is.
It would be interesting to compare the CO2 from a bunch of candles to that of a regular light bulb. Then again, if some fool burns down their house because of the candles, they will emit a lot more CO2.
Back when I was in High School long ago, student who was hard core environmentalist was telling everyone not to use an electric toothbrush. He said, “It may take longer, but you’ll save energy!” Then I pointed out that the motor in an electric toothbrush was only 10 watts, BUT the bulb in the bathroom was 100 watts.; you burn more energy by taking longer. He wouldn’t believe me because you can’t fix stupid.
Earth Hour
Bah, humbug.
Idiot Hour is what this really is.
Why do these people always like to take quotes from mass murderers such as the guy that put fuel in tires put them around people’s necks then light their heads on fire such as Nelson Mandela?
I see them with Che shirts and Mao shirts. When did we start celebrating mass murderers?
Our family will be celebrating electricity tonight by turning on every light, watching a movie on our big screen TV, and baking cookies in our electric range!
Will the power generating stations stop generating electricity during Earth Hour? How does Earth Hour save on electricity?
Snow has been falling for two days. It’s deeper than your mukluk tops as far as you can see… can’t get out of your cave without snowshoes, and the wolves are howling in the forest. But if our smoke and light bothers them, we’ll put out the fire tonight. Throw an extra joint of meat in the coals, keep the spear close.
The Neanderthals in the cave next door say they’ll keep their fire burning no matter what. They are in the pocket of big kindling. The Great Gore needs to give them a good whop upside the head. Let them suffer like the rest of us in our flea-bitten skins and hides.
Well, best stay awake. Stay watchful. Good night. And good luck.
I should imagine that fewer people are turning off their lights each year as dissatisfaction grows. I don’t know if that can be measured or not, but to me, if the green extremists are screaming louder that we should do this and if they are laying on more guilt and more emotional manipulation, it probabaly means they’ve noticed we are losing interest in everything they say.
Imagine your lights go out and you havent got enough money to pay for them to come back on again