Turn on ALL your lights tonight at 8 pm!

[Greybird]

Let's frustrate those who want us to cut off civilization, productivity, and LIGHT for the sake of the fictitious Anthropogenic Global Warming gods.

Tonight, at 8 pm local time, do a counter-observance to the Earth Hour misanthropes at the World Wildlife Fund. Make your house blaze with light for an hour!

Play with your kids in a floodlit back yard. Make the snow glisten. Read with a three-way bulb turned up to full intensity. Sit on the porch with portable lighting and gab with your neighbors. Smoke 'em if you got 'em — I'd say this is a night to act out that metaphor from Atlas, whether it's routine for you or not.

It's the best counter-protest available this year against those who would prefer to have us shivering in the dark, with industrial productivity sacrificed — preferably at the point of government guns — for an untenable theory that values, even welcomes, human suffering.

I'm going to wash my car — the next target of this profound hatred of humanity, after "lights out."

Drive Al Gore and all the other sanctimonious Gaia-worshippers crazy. It's the thing to do — tonight!

[BAMF]

Seems to me that that accomplishes about the same thing the Earth Hour folks are accomplishing by turning out the lights...nothing.

I think I'll continue to turn the lights out when I leave a room, just like any other day.

[Laure]

I'll post a picture here of my beautiful house all lit up.

[Greybird]

Methinks, Kori, you don't live in the Sanctimony of California. (Hardly a "state" in any sense.)

It'd have much more outrage potential in San Francisco, but even in L.A., it'll get 'em riled. If I get even one bellow from a neighbor, I'll have raised consciousness. Worth an hour of faster-spinning meter dials.

If any of you are leaving the lights out, at least have some quiet relations under the sheets with your Significant Other. That's a celebration of life, rather than death, which is what the WWF wants for humanity.

[BAMF]

The World Wrestling Federation? Nope, don't live in California. It wouldn't cause a fuss here...and I just figured it wouldn't elsewhere either. I still don't think it'll do anything but piss people off. Oh wellz, it's yer electric bill, not mine.

[Mike11]

My town isn't participating which is odd as its a university town which normally takes up these kinds of causes. I'll be switching off tonight, as will most of my friends but shutting off a public resource seems wrong - we don't close schools to highlight illiteracy.

Our town has made some strides, we have energy efficient lights that direct all the light downwards and the dorms are being renovated with better materials to preserve heat and what not.

[Barbara Branden]

Let's frustrate those who want us to cut off civilization, productivity, and LIGHT for the sake of the fictitious Anthropogenic Global Warming gods.

Tonight, at 8 pm local time, do a counter-observance to the Earth Hour misanthropes at the World Wildlife Fund. Make your house blaze with light for an hour!...

Drive Al Gore and all the other sanctimonious Gaia-worshippers crazy. It's the thing to do — tonight!

Bravo, Steve! I only wish I'd seen your post in time to light up my house.

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

Just ignore this crap--that'll do it!

--Brant

[Ed Hudgins]

Here's my piece from last year when Australia did a "lights-out" hour. - 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 rise 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.

[Mike11]

As timing would have it there is a major demonstration on campus today about Canada's lack of clean energy and reliance on fossil fuels. There will also be some kind of vote, I guess to show student solidarity with the cause. Right now in the library I'm staring at a huge 15*50 foot banner, "The Climate is Changing! Vote at 5:50!" with related signs across campus. No manifesto though so I'm not sure what exactly is being voted on, something windmills I think. There's also a lot of pamphlets being handed out on how to maximize the efficiency of appliances, how to get a dish washer to use half the normal energy, things like that.

I think its good. Global Warming Efficiency is a good thing. The technocratic dream was about doing more with less not less with more.

If I see some actual content or program its possible I'll vote for them

[tjohnson]

I think its good. Global Warming Efficiency is a good thing. The technocratic dream was about doing more with less not less with more.

If I see some actual content or program its possible I'll vote for them

I agree. Conservation is a large source of untapped energy. Whenever I see images of freeways completely clogged with vehicles at a standstill I think of all that wasted fuel and added pollution. Whether or not our activities are a major factor in climate change has nothing to do with cleaning up our act - it's just plain stupid what we do sometimes.

[Mike11]

GS,

You might actually be aware of this campaign, its happening at Mount A in Sackville.

[tjohnson]

GS,

You might actually be aware of this campaign, its happening at Mount A in Sackville.

A mere 4 hr drive from here but no, I was not aware. Too busy trying to make a living to watch the news

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Too busy trying to make a living to watch the news

GS,

That was the most rational thing I have read by you.

We may not agree on many things, but our respective BS meters seem to be gaged to the same standard.

Michael

[Mike11]

GS,

You might actually be aware of this campaign, its happening at Mount A in Sackville.

A mere 4 hr drive from here but no, I was not aware. Too busy trying to make a living to watch the news

lol

Well, we're a few minutes into the pre-game show, I know this as the guy with the loud speaker is aimed towards the library, and its not looking good. "1,2,3,4, Fossil Fuels Have Got To Go!" (Yah, that's bloody likely and not at all needless ideological puritanism at the expense of political possibility). "Hey Hey Ho Ho, Climate Change has got to Go!" (Sounds weird but I swear that's the slogan).

And WTF is with the banging frying pans in front of the bloody library!?!?! They're loud you know.

The speaker is talking about Canada's poor record, apparently worse than China and the States, in dealing with fossil fuel pollution controls. Given that a few months back Alberta surpassed Ontario as the economic heartland and our current political regime (which has a long track record of ignoring environmental problems of any kind, let alone global warming, exist) this doesn't surprise me. It does seem needlessly drastic though, ending fossil fuel consumption? Instituting clean power exclusively in its place?

Not while Albertans are making 20$ an hour as hamburger flippers in a Micci-D's methinks.

So yet another student protest sacrifices real progressive goals for ideological narcissism and I die a little inside.

Mount Allison has this thing called the "Sackville Bubble", a small quiet, serene town (overlooking the gentle tides of the oceans offering up their life giving nourishment to our beautiful nature preserves and farmlands as even the birds meditate on the simple things in life); political motivation is harder to find than a needle in a hay stack, as such when politics does happen it tends to be alienated, inane and is seen by most as simply annoying.

[tjohnson]

Mount Allison has this thing called the "Sackville Bubble", a small quiet, serene town (overlooking the gentle tides of the oceans offering up their life giving nourishment to our beautiful nature preserves and farmlands as even the birds meditate on the simple things in life); political motivation is harder to find than a needle in a hay stack, as such when politics does happen it tends to be alienated, inane and is seen by most as simply annoying.

My nephew went there, I think he majored in smoking pot - sure is good at it!

[Mike11]

My nephew went there, I think he majored in smoking pot - sure is good at it!

Well, a lot of students do spend time in the park just being ... ... ... "aware" ... ... ...

[tjohnson]

Too busy trying to make a living to watch the news

GS,

That was the most rational thing I have read by you.

We may not agree on many things, but our respective BS meters seem to be gaged to the same standard.

Michael

Oh I'm VERY rational, believe me. ;)