Lights On!!!

8.30: With the enviro-crowd wiping their conscience clean of that eco-guilt from their hypocritical lifestyles, myself and others celebrating Human Achievement Hour will be protesting their protest. To do my part (to borrow the rhetoric of the environmental movement), I have turned the lights on in every room of the house, switched the gas heater on, despite the rather mild conditions, and turned the TV on quite loud, listening to Brian Taylor’s commentary of Geelong’s first match of the season. It’s not going so well. Long story short, I lost my sprite as Fremantle kicked the first five goals, though things have improved. Still, without electricity, I wouldn’t even know what was going on in Perth, 3400km away. Thanks, modern technology.

8.35: As Geelong claw their way back into the contest, I re-read Ross McKitrick’s tribute to modern civilisation.

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.

Well worth reading in full.

8.40: Youtube has jumped on the Earth Hour bandwagon, with a switch accompanying each video. We can symbolically turn our lights off on our computers to conserve energy. By flicking the virtual switch, the white background becomes black. This is a testament to the pointless symbolism of Earth Hour. If they were serious about preventing carbon dioxide emissions, they would have this option all the time.

8.45: The Department of Parliamentary Services is also participating in Earth Hour. Liberal MP Dennis Jensen objects:

This is a real slippery slope that we are getting on. What if another government chose to participate in Human Achievement Hour? Do neither the Department nor the Presiding Officers see how incongruous this would be? Do none of them see the dangers of the blatant and clear politicisation of our bureaucracy, the strength of which has always supposedly been that it is apolitical and provides frank and fearless advice. How can the Department now claim this to be the case when it has blatantly joined a political campaign, which is very clearly identified with the “left”.

And Geelong are now in front. Good stuff.

8.50: I’m sitting here wondering how much of an impact that Earth Hour this year will have. A quick look around the street reveals quite a few dissidents. And it looks like that now the hour in question is upon us, the Youtube switch is off as the default setting.

8.55: The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is sick of humans reproducing.

9.00: This is the Hour of Power, as Jo Nova is calling it.

In the hundred thousand years since homo sapiens came to be, people have fled bondage, wars, small-pox, dysentery, died from minor scratches, starved to death, been ravaged by lions, stricken by cholera, and survived the odd ninety thousand year stretches of hypothermic, abysmal ice age.  We lived in the darkness for 99,900 years, cowering in corners, listening to drips, waiting for the sun.

There is only one type of Freedom – and all else is servitude, slavery or tyranny.

I’m not sure about this heater thing anymore. I know I’m doing my part, but it’s getting kind of hot in here. Oh well. I’ve only got another half hour to stick it out. If I was joining the Earth Hour crowd, I wouldn’t be able to watch the Cats take the lead over the Dockers. This is much better.

9.05: Viv Forbes explains why we should celebrate coal over candles. It makes plenty of sense, especially given that candles offset a bit of that 45nK of warming that are averted by this particular affair.

It was coal that produced clean electric power which cleared the smog produced by dirty combustion and open fires in big cities like London and Pittsburgh. Much of the third world still suffers choking fumes and smog because they do not have clean electric power and burn wood, cardboard, unwashed coal and cow dung for home heat.

9.10: North Korea; where it’s Earth Hour all the time!

9.15: Tim Blair bursts my bubble, exposing one of my idols.

Is there a greater Earth Hour hypocrite than this year’s star recruit, Indian cricketer Sachin Tendukar?

I give my best to cricket and if, through this medium, I am able to raise awareness on the impact of climate change, then I would very much like to use this opportunity to reach out to my fans and ignite the fire in them to strive towards a better planet.

Noted oil company enthusiast Tendulkar owns more than 40 cars. He’s really an Hour of Power kind of guy.

9.20: The greatest batsman since Bradman isn’t the only big name backing Earth Hour.

When the Earth Hour ambassadors include a child, a magician, a couple of actors, a singer, a model, a chef, a radio presenter, a celebrity gardener, a priest, a hotelier, a former rock star, a green politician, an SBS landscape architect and not a single economist or scientist, I think we’ve long stopped listening to “the science” and are checking out the designer label.

Australians do not care about star power. One would have thought that a supposedly serious organisation wouldn’t waste time with such petty endorsements.

9.25: Tim Blair has an Earth Hour song.

9.30: For all its useless symbolism, Earth Hour does provide us with an opportunity to reflect on just how lucky we are. We in the West in the 21^st century enjoy a standard of living matched by few others throughout history and in the world today. It is accompanied by a level of freedom, which as Milton Friedman once noted, was the exception throughout history, rather than the rule. We should never take this for granted, for we are truly blessed. The progress of humanity is something to be celebrated rather than discarded.