Tonight between the hours of 8 and 9 pm wifey and I will be doing... whatever the hell we want with or without electricity. Fuck Earth Hour.
I'm not against energy conservation. I'm all for independence from fossil fuels for political and economic reasons. I'd like cleaner air in cities and I'm all for government subsidizing the research and development of energy harnessing technologies, and I'll tolerate taxation to pay for it. I like how wind turbines look and I'd like to see a lot more of them on Toronto's waterfront.
And I realize that the sort of change we need to effect will come about through adjustments in the domestic sphere. That's why, although we don't see the utility bill for our apartment, we still employ compact fluorescent lightbulbs in every non-dimmer lamp and fixture. We unplug cellphone chargers and the like when not in use. When the weather turns warm we open windows, close blinds, and employ small fans to generate a breeze, not touching the AC until bedtime (and we hate that homes being built now don't have windows that open).
My beef with Earth Hour, the cult of Gore, and climate change hysteria, is that the most fervent believers seem to have in common a hunger for doom & gloom prophesying, which they sex up with a labcoat and call science. I'm not saying that global warming isn't happening. I'm not saying it is. I'm just not happy being preached at about climatology by people who can't explain why it's colder in winter and warmer in summer, just like I never liked priests telling me who and when to fuck.
I've had the luxury of learning a thing or two in my nearly 30 years, and what I've come to understand most of all is when I don't understand something. For example, I don't understand the science of climatology. It's not, as W would have us believe, that "the science is fuzzy". I'm certain that the science is no more or less fuzzy than in any other crowded field. I'm sure there are deep disagreements among scientists who lazy newspaper writers would lump together as being in support of the theory of Global Warming, and very likely there are substantial areas of agreement between labs whose studies suggest that the planet is heating up and those whose work says otherwise. The thing is, I don't understand the myriad aspects of their work so I'm unable to throw my conviction behind one camp.
Money I get. So I expect that I should be charged more for power use during peak times. And that war is inevitable when the world's economy is dependent on a finite and highly localized resource. Sure it's ultimately more complicated than that, but the issue can be boiled down to supply & demand. Not so with climate change. I don't know why when the summer is cooler than usual that Global Warming gets credit, or how Toronto's snowiest winter in decades confirms or denies GW hypotheses. But I do know that salt supplies ran thin in the last few weeks and the budget for snow removal was tapped, so it's probably in the city's best interest to fund more robust public transit so we're not held at the mercy of snowplow schedules when the white stuff comes down. Yes, that would reduce the burning of fossil fuels, but I don't know what that means for the planet. I expect it'll make my city a bit nicer in a number of ways, though.
Earth Hour is a stunt. For 60 minutes on a Saturday evening people will try to live in a way they couldn't sustain for 10 minutes any other time of the week. By 9:01 they'll either be asleep or have the TV back on. Will they have unplugged the VCR they haven't used in a year? Probably not, because weeding out the little bits of waste isn't the point. Earth Hour is all about staggering around in the dark or burning candles or something, and I expect they'll be at my door with pitchforks and torches when they see that we've got the lights on.
I'm not against energy conservation. I'm all for independence from fossil fuels for political and economic reasons. I'd like cleaner air in cities and I'm all for government subsidizing the research and development of energy harnessing technologies, and I'll tolerate taxation to pay for it. I like how wind turbines look and I'd like to see a lot more of them on Toronto's waterfront.
And I realize that the sort of change we need to effect will come about through adjustments in the domestic sphere. That's why, although we don't see the utility bill for our apartment, we still employ compact fluorescent lightbulbs in every non-dimmer lamp and fixture. We unplug cellphone chargers and the like when not in use. When the weather turns warm we open windows, close blinds, and employ small fans to generate a breeze, not touching the AC until bedtime (and we hate that homes being built now don't have windows that open).
My beef with Earth Hour, the cult of Gore, and climate change hysteria, is that the most fervent believers seem to have in common a hunger for doom & gloom prophesying, which they sex up with a labcoat and call science. I'm not saying that global warming isn't happening. I'm not saying it is. I'm just not happy being preached at about climatology by people who can't explain why it's colder in winter and warmer in summer, just like I never liked priests telling me who and when to fuck.
I've had the luxury of learning a thing or two in my nearly 30 years, and what I've come to understand most of all is when I don't understand something. For example, I don't understand the science of climatology. It's not, as W would have us believe, that "the science is fuzzy". I'm certain that the science is no more or less fuzzy than in any other crowded field. I'm sure there are deep disagreements among scientists who lazy newspaper writers would lump together as being in support of the theory of Global Warming, and very likely there are substantial areas of agreement between labs whose studies suggest that the planet is heating up and those whose work says otherwise. The thing is, I don't understand the myriad aspects of their work so I'm unable to throw my conviction behind one camp.
Money I get. So I expect that I should be charged more for power use during peak times. And that war is inevitable when the world's economy is dependent on a finite and highly localized resource. Sure it's ultimately more complicated than that, but the issue can be boiled down to supply & demand. Not so with climate change. I don't know why when the summer is cooler than usual that Global Warming gets credit, or how Toronto's snowiest winter in decades confirms or denies GW hypotheses. But I do know that salt supplies ran thin in the last few weeks and the budget for snow removal was tapped, so it's probably in the city's best interest to fund more robust public transit so we're not held at the mercy of snowplow schedules when the white stuff comes down. Yes, that would reduce the burning of fossil fuels, but I don't know what that means for the planet. I expect it'll make my city a bit nicer in a number of ways, though.
Earth Hour is a stunt. For 60 minutes on a Saturday evening people will try to live in a way they couldn't sustain for 10 minutes any other time of the week. By 9:01 they'll either be asleep or have the TV back on. Will they have unplugged the VCR they haven't used in a year? Probably not, because weeding out the little bits of waste isn't the point. Earth Hour is all about staggering around in the dark or burning candles or something, and I expect they'll be at my door with pitchforks and torches when they see that we've got the lights on.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
I have an absolutely brilliant view of downtown that you must come over and see. The local news certainly called the evening a success, but with the exception of a dark CN Tower, my view seemed identical at 8:59 and 9:01. Alas.
I came across the event in a soft-sell kind of way. The goal as I understood it was to get people to think a little more about conservation and about people who didn't have access to the abundance of resources that we enjoy. I can get behind that, and I like the idea that there are dozens of little things like those that you mention that can be done easily at the individual level. The stat that got bandied about last night was that Toronto saved enough energy during Earth Hour to power 150 000 homes. I'd certainly like to know how they got that number (was it based on estimated participation? did the folks at the generators call in to mark the difference?), and they didn't give a duration. Powering 150 000 homes for a week is certainly a better goal than powering them for, say, six seconds. Still, it was a nice example of "here's what Toronto can do collectively with its people doing small things at the individual level"
The fearmongering I can do without. To me, that kind of dystopic hyperbole always boils down to "the terrorists hate our light bulbs".
Thanks Earth Hour!