New Cult of Darkness

[Ed Hudgins]

New Cult of Darkness

by Edward Hudgins

April 2, 2007 -- Since early men ignited the first fires in caves, the unleashing of energy for light, heat, cooking and every human need has been the essence and symbol of what it is to be human. The Greeks saw Prometheus vanquishing the darkness with the gift of fire to men. The Romans kept an eternal flame burning in the Temple of Vesta. Our deepest thoughts and insights are described as sparks of fire in our minds. A symbol of death is a fading flame; Poet Dylan Thomas urged us to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Thus a symbol of the deepest social darkness is seen in the recent extinguishing of the lights of cities across Australia and in other industrialized countries, not as a result of power failures or natural disasters, not as a conscious act of homage for the passing of some worthy soul, but to urge us all to limit energy consumption for fear of global warming.

This is not the symbol of the death but, rather, of the suicide of a civilization.

Certainly most of the individuals turning off their lights saw their acts in a narrower perspective. They have been told by every media outlet that the warming of the earth's atmosphere due to human activities will certainly cause a global catastrophe unless we act now to radically curtail our energy use. The case for disaster is still weak; but this matter, which deserves dispassionate and serious consideration, is being hyped like the problematic products aimed at an attention deficit disordered audience by the entertainment industry and by pandering politicians.

In our individual lives it is quite rational to want the most for the least. We want the highest quality food, automobiles, and houses for the lowest price. And we want to pay as little as possible to run our cars, heat our homes, and power our consumer electronics. This means we want to waste as little as possible because waste is money that could be spent on other needs. So turning off the lights in an unused room is an act of self-interest.

The goal of our actions should always be our own welfare. And in a fundamental sense, this means using the material and energy in the world around us for our own well-being. The means for doing so is the exercise of our rational minds, to discover how to light a fire, to create a dynamo to generate electricity by burning fossil fuels or to tap the inexhaustible energy of the atom. The standard by which to choose which means is best is economics. In a free market, if producers can generate a kilowatt of power for pennies by burning oil compared to dollars per kilowatt through windmills and solar panels, it makes no sense to use the latter.

Some will argue that the full costs of each means must take account of unintended adverse consequences such as pollution that measurably harms our lives, health, and property. But there are means for dealing with such externalities -- usually involving a strict application of property rights -- that will not harm us far more than the alleged ills they aim to alleviate by dampening creative human activities and innovations.

When the costs of generating energy via oil rises too high as supplies dwindle -- still many decades if not centuries away -- our creative minds in a free market will develop less costly ways to harness wind, wave, and sunlight.

Through short-sightedness, sloppy thinking, emotional indulgence and even a deep malice, many environmentalists today -- especially in their approach to global warming -- are perpetuating an ethos of darkness. Consider the harm of their symbolic acts, to say nothing of the policies many of them advocate.

Most individuals acquire their values through the culture, often through implicit messages that they do not subject to rational analysis. The implicit message for many of turning off the lights of a city is that we should feel guilty for the act of being human, that is, for altering and employing the environment for our own use.

In her novel Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand describes the consequences of such an assumption in the view from a plane flying over a collapsing country:

"New York City … rose in the distance before them, it was still extending its lights to the sky, still defying the primordial darkness… The plane was above the peaks of the skyscrapers when suddenly … as if the ground had parted to engulf it, the city disappeared from the face of the earth. It took them a moment to realize ... that the lights of New York had gone out."

We must keep focused clearly on the fundamental issues in every discussion about the environment: the right of individuals to pursue their own well-being as they see fit; the requirement that man the creator utilize the material and energy in the environment to meet his needs; the rational exercise of our minds as the way to discover the best means to do so; and the exercise of that capacity as a source of pride and self-esteem

The spectacle of a city skyline at night is the beauty of millions of individuals at their most human.

Energy is not for conserving; it is for unleashing to serve us, to make our lives better, to allow us to realize our dreams and to reach for the stars, those bright lights that pierce the darkness of the night.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ed,

We crossed! (See below.)

Sydney Blacks Out for Global Warming

By ROHAN SULLIVAN

March 31, 2007

My Way News

I saw this this other day and the sheer idiocy left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Even if science ends up proving that man can reduce global warming by cutting back on some activities, and even if that proves to be beneficial somehow (and from what I have read so far, the jury is still out on both and promises to be for a long time), how many cities are there in the world? Doing one night in one city doesn't mean anything.

It was only a great publicity stunt for Australian politicians (and I shall not be one who gives their names).

I came across an essay by Ed Hudgins at the TAS website (he had linked to it on RoR) that is a voice of sanity amidst this kind of stupidity.

New Cult of Darkness

by Edward Hudgins

Good job, Ed.

EDIT: This post just crossed with Ed's here on OL, where he posted his article: New Cult of Darkness

Michael

Wonderful article.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Even in "Atlas" the villains didn't literally pull the plug on themselves; they still had the dignity of the transition period of parasitism.

--Brant

[zantonavitch]

Beautiful. A well-written, thoughtful, insightful, inspiring article by Ed Hudgins and TAS.

In so many ways the claim that there's an energy "shortage" is absurd. The whole known universe consists of nothing but energy and matter. So how can there be any "crisis" or shortage of either one? What we actually have is a surplus of government.

I wonder if Ed's Cult-of-Darkness friends have a slogan for their evil? Back in the 1970s and '80s the enviro-wackos used to say "Small is beautiful." This referred to houses, cars, energy-use, and -- secretly -- life and pleasure. You can't get much more philosophically depraved than that! "Small is beautiful" is like Orwell's "War is peace."

I think the ideology of the greens is plainly socialist, altruist, and even irrationalist. They're driven by "deep malice," as Ed's article notes, and seem almost openly anti-human. Their overall philosophy is very opposed to human triumph, and the individualism-based vivacious dynamos and conquering heroes of mankind.

(cross-posted, which is sometimes pushy and rude, but sometimes quite legit, IMHO)

[Barbara Branden]

Ed, what a beautiful, thoughtful, and moving article. Thank you.

I remember the New York City blackout of 1965. It felt like the end of the world -- something that must never be allowed to occur again. We never would have dreamed that it cøuld occur again, by choice.

Can you imagine what Rand, who wanted to protect the city she loved with her own body, would have said about those who voluntarily choose darkness over light?

Barbara

[Wrighty]

Thanks so much, Ed.

Well considered and succinctly put -

....and we should all worry about the creeping blanket of guilt that we are allowing to wrap round mankind. Given the lust for power (over people, rather than kilowatts) - who do the light extinguishers of Sydney feel they have given theirs away to this time, as they jumped on this bandwagon?

Are they perhaps participating in one of civilisation's seances, each with a finger on the glass? Who moves the glass? Does it move of its own volition? Who's next for exploitation?

When man invented the wheel, the inevitable march to this point in time began. Man's ingenuity got us here, and from here we will move onwards, not backwards, with that same ingenuity.

I live in a part of South West England, where the prevailing wind comes off the Atlantic and tides in the Bristol Channel have a considerable range. It is a naturally beautiful place, but the powerful minority of local inhabitants have deemed it perpetually natural (in their lifetime anyway) by standing in the way of many developments of wind farms and tidal booms for harnessing electricity. Energy Luddites we might call them. But the hypocrisy soon rises to the surface....These self same people do not advocate everyone to use public transport (or use it themselves) and indeed many drive gas-guzzling 4x4's.

Not all is lost, however...

Recently the inhabitants of the Isle of Lewis (off west coast of Scotland) have agreed to a massive wind farm project, recognizing that economics actually has more of a bearing on their lives than mere aesthetics. When faced with having a life on Lewis with the wind farm - or leaving the island and moving to the mainland so they can then admire mere pictures of or reminisce about Lewis...they (sensibly) chose to stay.

Ultimately, if we are to be forced to use less energy or have it rationed, then who decides how much you or I or he will have? Will it be price regulated? If so, then eventually only the rich will have it. If it is rationed any other way then we are all in the hands of the deciders, who hold power over us all.

[Dragonfly]

Counterpoint: I love darkness. In the overpopulated country where I live I've moved seven years ago from the densely populated west to the relatively rural north-east. Here I still can see the glorious Milky Way at night, in my former environment this was impossible due to the light pollution (especially the sodium lamps in greenhouses in the neighborhood creating an orange glow in the sky all night). It's like the grimy smokestack: there has been a time that this was a sign of progress, it meant better living conditions than before. But today it's the symbol of the backward economy of formerly communist East-European states, we no longer accept it as a good thing, and rightly so: pollution may once have been relatively unimportant in comparison to improving living conditions, now this is no longer the case. In the same way wasting energy in large amounts may have been a symbol of progress, but it will not continue to be so. For example the light: all that light that is emitted upwards into the air is wasted energy. In some places they now use street lanterns that direct all the light downwards where it is needed, so it's used more efficiently and it no longer hinders the amateur astronomers and other people who want to be able to see the stars. We want to look further than the city and we want to look further than today. The solution is of course not abandoning technology, it is more and better technology. One of the promising fields in that respect is nanotechnology, which may one day make our current technology really look clumsy and inefficient.

[PalePower]

I want to start this off by saying that I am ambivalent on the issue of global warming. I've heard so many contrasting, backed-up views over whether or not it actually is a threat that I honestly don't know what to think, what stance to adopt. To do so would require a lot more research on my part, something for which I neither have the time nor the particular interest at this point. However, aspects of the issue definitely do disturb me, aside from just the possibility of a global crisis. What I hear some politicians and radicals want to do to prevent it disturbs me in terms of curtailing freedoms and stunting societal progress. It's not just disturbing, it's frightening. It seems that some people are melting into hysteria, blindly screaming for environmental protection without any regard of the human cost or whether it's even necessary. All colors are washed out in the black-and-white of "protecting the environment." But what is just as - if not more -frightening is that I see this trend on both sides of the issue - is that I see that blind, indignant hysteria right here on this thread.

People, this is not Atlas Shrugged. This is not a fiction novel wherein the characters act as indisputible villains or heroes. This is not a crusade against man's freedom. This is not a movement to quash whatever happiness is rightfully ours to pursue. All it is, is merely a different form of acting in one's own self-interest. Whether or not that action does in fact realize self-interest is beside my point.

Imagine that we knew, definitively and doubtlessly, that human emissions due to technology and industry WERE in fact causing global warming. Imagine that we knew, definitely and doubtlessly, that unless we took some action, mass floods and catastrophic storms would take place all over the planet within ten years - this would include the flooding and destruction of such places as New York, California, Sydney. Imagine that the impending death of your friends, your family, your home, YOU, was a very possible, very real future.

Now can you honestly tell me that any person who acts to prevent this disaster is, in Kyrel Zantonavitch's words, a "socialist, altruist"? That they are "driven by 'deep malice'", or that they are "anti-human"? That their "philosophy is very opposed to human triumph"?

These people in Sydney are trying to save their lives - in the best way they know how. There is nothing altruistic about this! They honestly believe that global catastrophe is a reality - or at least a likely possibility. I am NOT advocating what they're doing - I am NOT advocating blackouts or suspension of human technology. Like I said before, I don't know what to think of global warming or how we can deal with it. I would think that there are other ways of going about saving the world besides an all-out shut-down of technology. I don't find anything inspiring about the coma of a city. And neither do these people in Sydney. That is WHY they're doing it. They don't want to see their lives and their homes and their loved ones lost under the unforgiving waves.

What I am asking you to consider is not the action itself. I wouldn't be writing this if all subsequent replies to this post had focused on the irrationality of the Australians' chosen course of ACTION - how they could have gone about supporting their lives BETTER. But in every reply, I have seen an attack on the blackout participants' essential philosophy. What I am asking you to consider, rather, is the MOTIVATION behind these people - for you to realize that it is really no different than your own, our own.

Please do not confuse a SYMBOL of life - light - for life itself:

Can you imagine what Rand, who wanted to protect the city she loved with her own body, would have said about those who voluntarily choose darkness over light?

Well, I would have hoped she'd say nothing, because that's not what those people were doing. Technically, yes, they physically chose darkness over light; figuratively, they chose light over darkness - they chose what they perceived to be life-supporting over that which they perceived to be death-supporting.

Any attack on the Syndney inhabitants' action should be directed at the objective efficacy of the action itself - not at their morality or their motivation or their philosophy. All these people are working for is life. Please don't overlook this fact.

~Elizabeth

Edited April 4, 2007 by ENonemaker

[Chris Grieb]

A couple of years past we had an extended black out in the area I live in Washington. It went on for four days. I hand no lights, phone, radio or tv. I was lucky that I was able to stay at my father's house till the power got back. Elizabeth; Keep in mind that the people having the black-outs don't want the power turned back on. There are a host of them who think the big problem in the world is there are too many people. Elizabeth they don't think they are the problem they think you Elizabeth are the problem. I will concede that there are some who concerned about some of the problems associated with global warming but there are others who have an evil agenda. An anti-life agenda!

[Judith]

I hadn't heard about the Sydney self-imposed black-out. As I started reading the article, my first thought was, "Jesus, talk about 'Back to the Pleistocene!'" As I kept reading, I realized that it was worse than that: it was "Back to the Pre-Human".

I wonder how many defiant, proud humans were in the city who kept their lights on? Maybe even shone them upwards so that the satellite cameras would see them?

Judith

[Judith]

Counterpoint: I love darkness.

Oh, me too. When I took hunter education class, I was shocked that I was the only one in the class who wouldn't be afraid to spend the night alone in the woods. Been there -- done that -- loved it. There's nothing like silence and darkness to settle the soul.

But on MY terms -- by MY choice.

Judith

[John Dailey]

Elizabeth:

~ These 'blackoutters' in Australia may well have been as you say, "Working for life." But, to the degree it helps those who clearly aren't working for HUMAN life, well, think about what that means to the degree the latter are helped even more by the 'well intentioned' about their own lives. I see such as conflicting quite drastically with my, my wife's, my children's (especially my Down's with more medical needs requiring non-turned off electrical power than you'd want to know about) lives.

~ Their symbolic 'intentions' nwst, they are advertising a conflict not only with *my* 'needs,' but one they are clearly ready to 'symbolically' increase. I see this as a threat to affecting those who control (can we say 'rationing'?) such power in my living domain.

~ Please keep in mind the effect 'well intentioned symbolic' actors can affect disagreers lives...as well as *your* own. Sympathy has it's place; but some lines should not be crossed.

LLAP

J:D

Edited April 4, 2007 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

Addendum:

~ I like 'the Darkness' also, like Dragonfly; I definitely find it quite meditative. The night-sky, the quietness of nature (crickets nwst, or even adding, maybe) somewhere with no 'city-lights' affecting the atmosphere, and all the other poetic yadda-yadda...when *I* chose such wherever such to be findable.

~ NOT when it's imposed upon me in a place I least expected it. This kind of place is one where one find's that one's been returned to The Clan of the Cave Bear with no personal control over their own 'environment.' Indeed, such would tempt one to move to the hinterlands in Minnesota and become a 'survivalist'...if one could afford such.

LLAP

J:D

PS: Ed Hudgins titled his essay quite aptly.

Edited April 4, 2007 by John Dailey

[Ed Hudgins]

Dragonfly -- You're right that pollution, which in the past was a symbol of progress, is not in and of itself a good thing. And many studies show that as economies become more efficient, as resources are used in a less costly manner, that pollution easies. WHen less developed countries reach of GDP per capita of about $6,000, the environment usually begins to improve.

But please don't misunderstand my point. There are many forms of beauty. I've already spoken about city skylines. Let me now speak about the night sky.

I'm an amateur astronomer with some university background in the subject. (See picture below.) I regularly drive out to the country so I can see the Milky Way and the beauty of the heavens; I recently purchased land in rural West Virgniia on a mountain so I can pursue this love of the night. Whenever I go to Arizona, I go out into the desert with binoculars on a clear evening; it's some of the best seeing in the world. I've gone to the Kitt Peak Observatory and the Mount Palomar Observatory on nights when the public is allowed to observe.

A few years ago I took time from a conference in Chile to go to an isolated ski lodge in the mountains in late August -- the dead of winter there. At night, Santiago was distant and covered by clouds below the peak of the mountain, leaving the air above me clear, dry and transparent. A short walk from the lodge and no lights were visible expect those in the sky, a sky that those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere rarely see. I laid out in the snow for hours with my binoculars watching the Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way, with its bright center in Sagittarius straight overhead -- something never seen from the United States -- with the arms of our galaxy stretching from horizon to horizon.

And I never feel "small" as I look through a telescope and know that the light of a distant galaxy that I'm seeing left its home millions of years ago, before any man had walked on earth. I'm filled with excitement at the beauty and order of the cosmos.

Perhaps the only statement of Kant with which I agree is "I never cease to wonder at the starry sky above us and the moral law within us."

That's why I ended my piece by saying that unleashing energy allows us "to realize our dreams and to reach for the stars, those bright lights that pierce the darkness of the night."

[Ed Hudgins]

Kyrel -- You're right! E=mc2. The stock of energy and matter is the stock of the universe. The only things in short supply are rational minds that can figure out how to free energy at an economical price and the political freedom to do so!

Ed

[Ed Hudgins]

Barbara -- Thank you so much for your kind words! Coming from you they are truly of value.

I don't have my copy of your book at hand here in the office (it's at home right now) so I can't look up anything you relate about the New York City blackout. Were you with Ayn Rand when it happened? What were her thoughts as she looked at the darkened city?

Best,

Ed

[Ed Hudgins]

Elizabeth -- I do know that a lot of environmnetalists who really are human haters. But, of course, not all are and many do have legitimate concerns. I indicated there are self-interested reasons to want, as an individual, to conserve. And it is also rational to want to live in an environment in which you're not coughing because of all the black soot from the air doing into your lungs.

If a real global disaster threatened us, it would of course be rational to try to head it off. A city- or civilization-killing size asteroid heading to earth would be an example.

One of my great concerns about global warming is the less-than-rational nature of the discussion. Here's part of an email I recently wrote to a friend that summarizes some of my thoughts:

"The problem with the global warming issue is that in popular public and political policy discussions the matter it is an ill-defined, epistemological mess. Asking 'Do you believe in global warming?' has the flavor of 'Do you believe in Jesus?' with lots of unstated implications. We need to break the matter down.

"First, is the atmosphere warming up? By how much and over what time-frame? On average everywhere or with significant local differences? How confident can we be about the 'hockey-stick' shaped graphs projecting future warming?

"Second, to what extent is human activity responsible for warming? Scientist Fred Singer, who I've known for years, just co-authored a book suggesting this is a natural cycle every 1,500 years with little human impact. Pat Michaels, a climatologist I discussed this with before warming became a national issue, has pointed out flaws in Gore's case.

"Third, how disastrous would be the results of warming and what is the probability of such results? This clearly depends on the answer to the first two general questions. What are the benefits of global warming?

"Fourth, what's the likelihood that the policy medicines being suggested -- Kyoto -- will be effective against future warming? What will be the adverse effects? Will the cure be worse than the illness, with major reductions in living standards?

"Now look at the public discussion. We hear 'The debate is over; global warming is a fact.' A non-political physicist friend of mine has been so provoke -- he says that in science 'The debate is never over.' -- that he is circulating 'How to think about global warming' talking points at professional gathering.

"I'm sure you've seen the comments by many meteorologists and scientists not affiliated with businesses that question Gore and say that many claims are exaggerated. And I'm sure you've seen the outright attempts to silence those who reasonably question certain global warming claims.

"The statement about a 'consensus' on the issue also is problematic. A consensus among whom? Which scientists? What about just the subset of meteorologists and climatologists? [Consensus in science usually refers to] general laws or principles -- evolution, quantum theory, relativity. In such cases, the debate about particulars continues over centuries."

[Barbara Branden]

Barbara -- Thank you so much for your kind words! Coming from you they are truly of value.

I don't have my copy of your book at hand here in the office (it's at home right now) so I can't look up anything you relate about the New York City blackout. Were you with Ayn Rand when it happened? What were her thoughts as she looked at the darkened city?

Best,

Ed

I wasn't with Rand when the lights went out -- I was on the twentieth floor of my apartment building, in my office. A kind member of my staff groped his way down the blackened stairs to the street, groped his way to a store, managed to purchase a flashlight, and climbed twenty flights of stairs back to my office. On my way down the stairs, guided by the flashlight, I stopped at her apartment to make sure she was safe. My impression was that she was to some extent in shock, as we all were. It was too ridiculously out of Atlas Shrugged to be quite real. But I remember her saying. "I'm not yet quite ready to make the sign of the dollar."

Barbara

[Ellen Stuttle]

"Now look at the public discussion. We hear 'The debate is over; global warming is a fact.' A non-political physicist friend of mine has been so provoke -- he says that in science 'The debate is never over.' -- that he is circulating 'How to think about global warming' talking points at professional gathering.

Te-he. I wonder who that physicist is. Someone with whom you had a dinner conversation in D.C. not long ago?

Ellen

___

[Ed Hudgins]

Peter -- It's interesting that the things most advocated by many environmentalists here in the U.S. -- wind farms and the like -- are opposed over there. But there you see the problem. They say that burning fossil fuel is bad because it causes pollution. They say that wind farms and tidal booms are bad because they destroy the view or they confuse the poor ducks or whatever. In other words, all human activity does something to alter Gia and thus should be avoided.

I actually like the idea of solar power from solar panels on a house because I'd like to be as self-sufficient as possible. But in the future, when the cost of rocket trips to orbit drops, it will be economical to put large collectors in orbit which will beam down to earth via microwaves or lasars energy that will be clean and almost limitless. Then the complaint will be those lights in the sky that distract from the views of the constellations. But cheap access to orbit eventually will mean that I can go for a weekend on an orbiting platform -- a private one put up by Robert Bigelow -- where I can get a real out-of-this-world view!

[Ed Hudgins]

"Now look at the public discussion. We hear 'The debate is over; global warming is a fact.' A non-political physicist friend of mine has been so provoke -- he says that in science 'The debate is never over.' -- that he is circulating 'How to think about global warming' talking points at professional gathering.

Te-he. I wonder who that physicist is. Someone with whom you had a dinner conversation in D.C. not long ago?

Ellen

___

Just putting information to the maximum use possible!

[Ed Hudgins]

A beautiful view from space. The secret for we astronomers is to know where to find the dark parts!

[Judith]

I regularly drive out to the country so I can see the Milky Way and the beauty of the heavens; I recently purchased land in rural West Virgniia on a mountain so I can pursue this love of the night. Whenever I go to Arizona, I go out into the desert with binoculars on a clear evening; it's some of the best seeing in the world. I've gone to the Kitt Peak Observatory and the Mount Palomar Observatory on nights when the public is allowed to observe.

A few years ago I took time from a conference in Chile to go to an isolated ski lodge in the mountains in late August -- the dead of winter there. At night, Santiago was distant and covered by clouds below the peak of the mountain, leaving the air above me clear, dry and transparent. A short walk from the lodge and no lights were visible expect those in the sky, a sky that those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere rarely see. I laid out in the snow for hours with my binoculars watching the Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way, with its bright center in Sagittarius straight overhead -- something never seen from the United States -- with the arms of our galaxy stretching from horizon to horizon.

And I never feel "small" as I look through a telescope and know that the light of a distant galaxy that I'm seeing left its home millions of years ago, before any man had walked on earth. I'm filled with excitement at the beauty and order of the cosmos.

You're speaking my language. One of my favorite parts about visiting Flagstaff, AZ or the Nevada desert is the sky at night. Flagstaff especially is at an elevation and has a climate such that the night sky is particularly clear.

Cruising the South Atlantic on my trips to Antarctica and around Cape Horn were also wonderful opportunities to watch the southern skies.

Words are inadequate.

Judith

[Ed Hudgins]

Judith -- The Flagstaff area is great, and only a few hours from the Grand Canyon. And even though it is more an historical site than research facility, I love visiting the Lowell Observatory, (See photo before of the 24" Clark refractor.) I recently considered getting property midway between Flagstaff and Kingman, in the middle of nowhere, with beautiful deserts and black night skies!

[Judith]

The Flagstaff area is great, and only a few hours from the Grand Canyon. And even though it is more an historical site than research facility, I love visiting the Lowell Observatory

That's the place! The location is fantastic.

I recently considered getting property midway between Flagstaff and Kingman, in the middle of nowhere, with beautiful deserts and black night skies!

What changed your mind? Sounds like paradise to me.

Judith