22 March 2013

Things to do during Earth Hour

I loathe Earth Hour.  I called it "onanistic vileness" or rather the act of utter wankers who have the luxury to claim moral superiority, because they can stop using electricity.

In 2009 I said:

Oh yes, the sheeple in the relatively free rich world (and even the relatively unfree middle income world like China) will have a jolly ol' time switching off our lights for an hour. Makes you feel better a bit of enforced poverty doesn't it?

The Ayn Rand Institute rightly points out how perverse it is to celebrate extinguishing light:

Earth Hour presents the disturbing spectacle of people celebrating those lights being extinguished. Its call for people to renounce energy and to rejoice at darkened skyscrapers makes its real meaning unmistakably clear: Earth Hour symbolizes the renunciation of industrial civilization.


I've seen a city that has a constant earth hour - Pyongyang.  Dark, with lights in a few buildings, focused on the grotesque statues of the city's past Big Brothers, on the railway station and one or two other pockets of light.  It is dismal and dire.  To celebrate replicating this is unspeakably wrong.

Pity those who have no choice but to "celebrate Earth Hour".

Donate to LiNK - Liberty in North Korea.  Help people fleeing the darkness to experience light, heat and civilisation.

Otherwise, keep the lights on or maybe go for a drive.  Celebrate that a century ago, electric lighting was a delight, for being safer, brighter and opening up the evenings to more socialising, to reading, to enjoying more of life.    Celebrate that today, electric lighting is more reliable, safer and uses less electricity than ever before.

The future is not with those who would turn the lights out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The least to do is exhibit disdain for this life-hating nonsense. Turn on all appliances, rev up motors, a few fireworks and amplified noise...there that ought to do it.

Chris R.