Each and every year I become ever more flabberghasted with the excesses of Earth Hour. That’s the evening when we switch off the lights to celebrate the impending doom of industrial civilisation. Or something like that – the usual plans suggested do mean that at least. So, we all sit and shiver in the dark in order to mimic our forefathers before civilisation which does seem an odd thing to do to raise awareness of that environment said civilisation has saved.
That being something we’ve really got to recall – it is industrial civilisation which has saved what environment there is left. Without it either we’d all be dead or the entire environment would have been eaten and then we’d be dead. There simply isn’t any way to have 7 billion people without these lights, electricity, cities and industrial farming.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
Earth Hour is the global event inspiring millions to take action for our world. In the UK this year, we’re encouraging everyone to sign up for Earth Hour by making a promise for the planet.Earth Hour is also about marking the moment in a symbolic way. Hundreds of millions of people across the world, and nearly nine million in the UK will all switch off their lights on Saturday 24 March 2018 at 8:30pm to show their support for a better world and make their promise to do more to protect it.
Why abandon that very symbol of civilisation, artificial light, in order to call for action on the environment, that very thing which industrial civilisation saves?
The 11th edition of Earth Hour aims to build support for biodiversity by focusing on forests, oceans and wildlife conservation. In addition, the environmentalists want to promote the species protection this year.
OK, great, a useful way of doing that is that we all shuffle off into cities, the fields we do use for food we spray with every chemical imaginable so that we use fewer fields and that’s about the best we can do, isn’t it? Note that urbanisation and industrial farming aren’t what the Earth Hour people advocate.
I am part of a local community group called Sustainable Chard. We have organised a day of events called Earth Hour Chard, including events aimed at the younger members of our town where they can learn about upcycling, renewable energy, planting and growing. During the afternoon there will be eco talks and workshops where people can learn how to reduce their impact on the planet with topics on travel, food, the home and carbon footprints and in the evening we have assembled live bands, musicians, poets, green traders and therapists for an Earth Hour extravaganza.
So people are going to travel to a party to help save the environment?
The actual annoying part of this is alluded to above. If 7 billion of us lived as hunter gatherers there wouldn’t be 7 billion of us. We’d all be dead and before we died we’d have eaten every other thing, animal or plant, upon the face of the planet. It is exactly this industrial civilisation that people so deplore which enables both us and the other bits of nature to survive and thrive. So why is it that people insist upon dumping light, that most obvious part of this industrial civilisation, in order to advocate protecting the very thing that civilisation does protect, the environment?
Damn I missed it! I could have celebrated Earth Hour by switching on all the lights in the house, doing my washing, running the dishwasher and vacuuming while watching the tv and listening to the radio. An opportunity missed.
Other people dying isn’t the problem, it’s the solution.
See Porritt, et al.
Just as long as sufficient of the rest of us remain alive to keep the elite in the style to which they have become accustomed, then everything’s fine. They just don’t realise how many people that is.
You’ll never see Caroline Lucas at the bus stop you know, so their existence is not that simple.
This is why we need dynamic electricity pricing.
Earth hour is discount hour!
During the afternoon there will be eco talks and workshops where people can learn how to reduce their impact on the planet with topics on travel, food, the home and carbon footprints and in the evening we have assembled live bands, musicians, poets, green traders and therapists for an Earth Hour extravaganza. Therapists? W. T. F.? They make themselves so depressed over the state of the planet they need medical help? I suggest next year they provide a mass swimming pool full of sodium hydroxide and anyone who feels like they need to reduce their impact on the planet especially… Read more »
Yes, I mean it would be far more natural to heat ourselves with wood and light ourselves with whale oil.
I heard about this Hour in past years. Heard nothing about it this year, as we have Bloomberg’s children chanting for gun control and a porn star on Sixty Minutes trying to deliver another small blow to Trump’s mandate. Manipulating the public mood is something lefties only do when they are not actively on the attack. America has the Department of Energy (founded by Jimmy Carter to solve the problem of dependence on foreign oil that has been overtaken by innovation) and the Environmental Protection Agency (responsible for the “environment”–that is, for everything we do not own) actively working to… Read more »
Surely an hour is too short. Earth year might actually change behaviour- though possibly not in the way that the promoters of earth hour desire.
In British Columbia, birthplace of Greenpeace, the energy usage during earth hour increased, suggests as an idea it’s run its course
A substantial proportion of the left believes that we’d be better off if the West was poorer. This is perhaps best observed in housing policies that envision that most young people today will spend their lives in high density apartments, not houses, much like the immigrants of early 20th Century New York, albeit with better plumbing a fewer rats. Of course, we would need overseers, and they should live well.
A colleague has a beautiful garden but is sick of the effort involved and wants to pave it over. There must be people in apartments who would love a garden but only have a balcony box. What change to the tax system would make it easier for such people to trade properties? Yes, abolishing stamp duty.
Simplistic conclusion: transaction taxes reduce the amount of green space.
It should be changed to Earth Year… and mandatory for the climate crazies. See if their opinion stays the same after a year without light, heat and civilisation.
Then send them to rural Africa for a year so they can enjoy the benefits of a diet from local, seasonal organically grown food.