The hatred that eco-fanatics feel towards humanity is captured in their Earth Hour tomorrow, no matter what window-dressing about solidarity with the world's poor is spun about it by such as Ban Ki-moon.
The title is the first sentence from Ross McKitrick's fine essay from 2009 spelling out just what a rotten thing Earth Hour is. Here it is in full (original
here)
Earth Hour: A Dissent
Ross McKitrick
In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughtson 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
Energy Hour (the hour before Earth Hour) was devised as a counter-demonstration and is being promoted here by the ICSC: It is by a group that takes a sceptical view of alarmism as well as a positive view of humanity, and is therefore more admirable as well as more soundly-based in science and observation.
Whether you mark Energy Hour as a genuine expression of concern for those already without it or those at risk of losing reliable affordable energy supplies in the near future, you might also want to consider keeping all your lights on during Earth Hour in order to mark the huge benefits we have gained from progress with energy supplies over the past few hundred years, and as a tiny gesture of defiance to the arrogance of those who would deny that to most and damage it for all.
Human Achievement Hour has been proposed by the CEI in the States as a replacement for Earth Hour itself. That adds a little more cachet to merely leaving your lights on and going about your ordinary routine which is what I tend to do.
Note added 23 March 2013: Even the climate buffoons of The Guardian and The Huffington Post are beginning to include criticisms in their puff-pieces for the vapid, malevolent and destructive stupidity of 'Earth Hour'. Meanwhile, downunder, Jo Nova is promoting 'Power Hour' with some grandly provocative suggestions:
'Things you can do at 8.30 on Saturday:
- Turn on all the lights you can find (bonus points for incandescents from the stash.)
- Put on the party lights, the patio light, the pool light, the mozzie
zappers, unpack those Christmas decorations. Get out your torches.
Switch the movement detector spotlights to continuous operation.
(Involve the kids — they love to help).
- Light your backyard with the landcruiser headlights! (Don’t flatten the battery, make sure you keep that engine running.)
- Don’t forget those bar radiators — revel in that infra red! (Light the kitchen with the ones in the oven and grill.)
- Eat Argentinian Lamb steak, Danish butter, Argentinian Cheese, Belgian Chocolate, and Californian Oranges.
- Drink German Beer and or French Champagne. Drink toasts to coal miners, oil rig workers, and power station staff.
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 ninety thousand year stretches
of 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.
It’s your chance to show your commitment to fighting the forces of darkness.'
