This excellent essay on the Earth Hour event, to be held tonight at 8:30PM in every local time zone, is an eye-opener. Earth Hour is a testament to stupidity, in my opinion, and deserves to be mocked. North Korea reminds us what it is like to like in darkness, both politically, and in energy poverty.
UPDATE: In California, Earth Hour was a complete failure according to electricity use data.
Earth Hour: A Dissent
by Ross McKitrick
Image via Wikipedia
In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour.
Here is my response.
I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity.
Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading.
Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water.
Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases.
Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that’s how the west developed.
The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity.
Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity.
People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too.
I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.
Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. – John Christy, director, UAH Atmospheric Science, Alabama State Climatologist
Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry and the power supply.
If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children who have been caught doing something bad, then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations.
No thanks.
I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its tradeoffs is something to be ashamed of.
Ross McKitrick
Professor of Economics
University of Guelph
Amen to that.
“Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. ”
Sums it up nicely.
I’ll just ignore it. This groupthink does not sway me either way.
On a second thought: How about an Earth week, or an Earth month?
I agree, Curious George. If this is really, really important, shouldn’t all electricity be shut off for a week or month? Where’s the dedication? Where’s the living up to one’s own beliefs? A month, yeah.
If they were really serious, they would turn off everybody’s power, whether they believed in the climate change fraud or not. Like they do in South Australia.
‘Earth Hour’ mentality parallels the extremist nonsense in the terrorist Una-bomber manifesto, same anti-human, anti-technology ant-business, and anti-civilisation brain rotting ideological swill.
It is a total disgrace that muck is being pushed on kids in school as dah right thunkin.
Spot on
“I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there”
Just love that!!
I always ponder what an hour without power does to the birth rate. Is there a spike in December births of recent?
A pathetic example of virtue signalling. Turn on every light in the house and plan to bake a pizza or something in the oven at 8:30 Pm tonight. The way they calculate the success of the event is by the Utility Co reporting how much the electricity demand was reduced. If there is no reduction, then nobody much cares. Actually there is little reduction anyway…it is mainly people like Gov’t workers who are paid OT to go shut the lights off on public buildings for an hour.
Don’t know how it is in the US, but here in Norway, this night, this very night, is the change to summertime. So…one hour is lost, and that is my Earth Hour. Good riddance!
No worries on my part. I’ll be enjoying what the nuclear power plant 30 miles from my house brings to me and my family.
The best part is I actually need fewer electrons than I used to due to the LED lighting and more energy efficient appliances, heating and cooling units and windows and doors I’ve put in over the past few years.
Hear, hear
We celebrated it with all our lights on, inside and out. A toast to all those who gave us wonderful electricity and the blessings we enjoy as a result.
Annie in Australia.
I now celebrate Earth Hour all year round by leaving everything turned on. Maybe I can find a couple of 500W halogen spots to shine at the sky , just to show willing.
These dumb shits don’t realise they are now walking backwards by pissing everyone off.
It was a dud around where I live.
Pretty much sums it up! Very well put, Ross.
The light is a symbol for hope, life and knowledge. Therefore, it should remain that way! Lights on! A protest against globalism and ignorant leftism.
Yep! Now to get this message out there in a way that resonates with the millennials. Showing my age….and, maybe….wisdom?
Yep! Now to get this message out there in a way that resonates with the millennials. Showing my age….and, maybe….wisdom?
Shut off cell towers and the internet for an hour.
A very reasonable proposal, but these bigot watermelons will tar and feather you if you just try to take them away their dearest toys.
There’s a reason the Dark Ages are called the Dark ages, and there’s a reason why The Enlightenment is called The Enlightenment.
Actually, the term “Dark Ages” was a slur against the Middle Ages, coined at a time when it was thought that ancient Greece and Rome were much more enlightened. It symbolizes the intellectual and cultural decline that was believed to have occurred in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Scholars don’t use the term anymore, because it is misleading and inaccurate. One inteesting thing to note: slavery had been virtually elminated by the end of the “Dark Ages,” only to be revived during the Renaissance in its fascination with the ancient Greeks and Romans. There are many other advances that were made in the Middle Ages. It’s very interesting to read about, and there are lots of books about the subject.
Monna…your response did not seem accurate to me, so I did a little research. The Wiki definition of Dark Ages supports your story. The Encyclopedia Britannica however, has a little different story, although it alludes to your PC version when it says: “The term “Dark Ages” is now rarely used by historians because of the value judgment it implies.” Give me a break!
By any definition, these where Dark TImes form 500-800 AD. The climate was cold. There was little urban life or culture. Education was scarce. War was common. Life was very hard and short from all accounts, which are few and far between, because so few could read or write. The term Dark Ages is quite appropriate for the time.
I have never equated the Dark Ages with the MIddle Ages. They used to be 2 different time periods. Now we are supposed to equate the two so that the Dark Ages don’t feel so bad? Monty Python, hilarious because of its complete absurdity, is starting to look like a modern day documentary.
jclarke341: I did the same thing when I read the “dark ages” were not dark. Seems it’s a PC rewrite of history.
Dark Ages where I come from was “after the Romans cleared out”, That meant not a lot being written down or carved in stone. No one scratching rude jokes in Latin on the back of ceramic tiles. Plenty of recycling activity going on. Roman bits & pieces being re-used in building work for a thousand years afterwards.
The Dark Ages was the period after the positive enlightening and civilising phase of Hellenic Greek and Roman Empires dissipated and were temporarily forgotten and lost.
The ‘Renaissance’ was the rediscovery of Greek and Roman books (“Classics”), plus records, science, philosopy, and technologies, stored in old Latin language libraries, which the new printing-press tech allowed translations and redistribution of these “Widdom” books, into English, German, French, etc., which bought back maturing civilisations to much of Europe again.
If the Dark Age’s relative destruction of civilisation never occurred we could have had the industrial revolution 500 years earlier than it happened, then as the CO2 hysteria ramped, we would have slid into the little-ice-age instead.
Human civilusation and its CO2 production would have been blamed for every case of famine, phenomia and frostbite, instead.
omg … Pneumonia.
WX, phenomia is OK too, whatever it is, as it’s encompassed by, and is a subset of “everything”.
Standard operating procedure here for a few years already , just to make a statement to this green nonsens. At exactly 20:30 locaI time the flood lights will turn on around the house for an hour. I have programmed an event for it in my home control system for the next couple of years.
An eloquent and perspicacious essay, sir! You have my vote 100% on everything you said. Life without cheap energy is a short and brutal affair. Coal, oil & gas freed our ancestors from a subsistence agrarian economy only a few generations ago and powered the development of the economic miracle that led to the society everybody takes for granted today.
Nicely put.
I don’t switch on lights for the sake of it but I have a bunch of high energy jobs to do during that hour. A casserole in the oven, some washing (clothes and dishes), a bit of hoovering and topped off with a power shower. All those activities need the lights on legitimately and make more of a difference in the records.
My aunt was born in the early 1900’s and lived to be close to 100 years old. When asked about the most remarkable change during her life, she stated that it was the invention and introduction of electric lights.
Will do. Thanks
And maybe a fan and extra PC turned on too
Keeping people in the dark about things is the MO of tyrants and dictators. How symbolic is it for those that want to control our lives to use this very idea to promote their beliefs.
Don’t forget the (relatively) recent high resolution Korea photo from https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/10/a-new-high-resolution-look-at-north-korea-where-it-is-earth-hour-every-night/
Yabut, “Earth-friendly” candles are ok. It’s all about feewings.
That’s today?
Wow, in past years it would have been plastered all over my Google News page.
I guess even the virtue signalers have moved on to more relevant causes.
LOL, I love that idea. Bravo.
I wonder how many hospital admissions there were for people walking into doors, falling down stairs, fires from people using candles during earth hour….how many burglars took advantage of earth hour by using night vision goggles to perform robberies and so forth….
The insidious nature of the ‘minority groups’ society pays far too much heed to.
I have every sympathy for minority groups, however Western society is largely based on democracy, in other words, the majority decision is sacrosanct.
Minority groups seeking to undermine that democratic process, other than via the ballot box, are a threat to the democratic process.
That might suggest that we sceptics, as a minority group, fall into that category, but we do noting more than talk to political and scientific organisations/individuals to change the perception of AGW. We don’t march, fight, demonstrate, threaten or coerce anyone to impose our will.
Ours is an entirely peaceful, intellectual (except in my case) and scientifically motivated assembly of largely credible, curious individuals who probably never accept anything without investigation.
Earth day is a demonstration of irrational, genetically programmed, fear of the unknown perpetrated by ignorant people (who shouldn’t be ignorant being that they are largely well educated and prosperous) whose preferred operational mode is to follow the herd. Largely because they are too complacent and lazy to think for themselves.
Capitalism is a natural human condition and its inherent characteristics of freedom of speech and freedom to trade has brought mankind to its pinnacle of evolution (so far).
Socialism is an unnatural political construct that encourages the herd mentality. Indeed, it relies on it and disguises it as democracy by organising minority groups into political movements, then tenuously linking them under the banner of the oppressed minority. In reality, few groups share anything in common and under any other circumstances would be at war with each other.
Earth day is a globalised manifestation of ignorance and fear harking back to the dark ages when man, ironically, worshipped the Sun and relied on superstition to control tribes. Socialism encourages ignorance and fear.
The NY power scandal…
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/nyregion/howe-cuomo-albany-percoco-corruption.html
Scandal update from last week:
https://www.courthousenews.com/second-circuit-oks-pipeline-to-new-york-gas-plant/
Meanwhile “Earth Day” (April 22) asks people to “Imagine a world without plastic pollution”. Plastic is now the enemy for Greenies, not “carbon”. What next, steel? Hey, I know, rust! Because it’s iron oxide, so can be called “iron pollution”.
I am a fierce climate skeptic but the simply horrible plastic that washes up on the east coast of Barbados, where I live,makes me weep. It’s visually disturbing but it’s breakdown into micro particles worries me more. If the climate fanatics could just direct their energies towards degradable plastics or recycling everyone would win.
Plastic disposal is a complex problem. But biodegradables have their own issues, and there is limited use for recycled plastic. There are no easy answers.
Why should it’s break down into micro particles bother you?
That just makes it easier for those microbes that thrive on hydro-carbons to finish consuming them.
Remember when USA cities, yes, even New York city used to dump its garbage off barges into the ocean? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrugoT8N5cE
There is no justification for allowing garbage/plastics to be dumped in the ocean. Anyone civilized who has seen massive amounts of garbage and plastics in the ocean is unanimous on this issue. Some countries and Nations’ still do dump garbage at sea, which is just criminal. Unless you crap in your own living room, and some countries still do that do. That is why they are called sh!thole countries.
+1000
The warmunists are emitionally conflicted. They demonize Self Propelled ruminants that produce natural fibres, dairy products, meat, hides for clothing and footwear Vs Oil Based fibres, pleather and plastic footwear.
Ruminants nourished by the Sunshine, Rainfall, Grassland Cycle converting grass and water to all the By-Products that have nurtured mankind for thousands of years.
They even demonize the use of honey that makes money subsidizing Pollination of the alleged Plant Based Diet that is to nourish 7 Billion + human’s.
Plastic pollution will grow under their totalitarian decrees, of their Cruelty Free Vision of the Planet. The Global Grassland Inventory will be left to rot and decay emitting methane Fairy Farts and Co2. Furthermore increased Grassland Wildfires emitting Black Carbon.
“Imagine a world without plastic pollution” What? Are people now going to stop indiscrimitaly throwing garbage on the ground? The amount of fast food and cigarette wrapper garbage constantly on the ground is unreal.
Rust is the oxygen pollution of good and pure iron. Let the fanatics among us oppose the destruction of all our good works by declaring Iron Day when we remember the great benefits wrought, literally, by the development of iron products. Our hero is Iron Man.
Let all celebrate by protesting the deleterious and corrosive effects of oxygen, the evil gas, that destroys all that it touches. Protesting in the most personal way, participants are encouraged to stop breathing for an hour. (Practicing is not recommended.)
“Long live Bog Iron” ban those Oxygen Furnaces melting our Recycled materials, Long live the hammer and anvil.
Much of Puerto Rice has been enjoying “Earth Hour” for the past 6 months or so. They don’t seem to like it much.
Should be Puerto Rico. Is there an edit feature here?
No. Around herr, the old adage of “proofread twice, and click once” rules.
“Should be Puerto Rico. Is there an edit feature here?”
Well, I’m sure the people in Puerto Rice aren’t having it too easy either.
Of course, to heir is human; to forgive, devine.
We already have fire detectors fitted to most homes these days and i can see a bright (dark) future in light-globe detectors.
right on
Alas, I will be on a plane for earth hour. I won’t be able to perform my annual “light my house up like a Christmas Tree” ritual. (I also crank up the washer and dryer).
Earth Hour is Orwellian madness to suck in old hippies, their most useful idiots.
Hey Linda, I’m an old hippie! And this old hippie will be lighting up the yard, house, appliances–hee hee
I am really sad that I cannot celebrate Earth Hour the way that I did a few years ago. Back then my family and I flew a thousand miles to Florida for the weekend. During Earth Hour we went to a really nice steakhouse and ate and drank to excess.
Tonight my contribution will be limited to cooking a lot of stuff for the holidays next weekend. I know it is not as much as I did back then, but it is something.
Hoppy April Fools’ Day.
I put these quotes up under another post but they do seem to fit here also.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/22/kim-stanley-robinson-empty-half-the-earth-to-save-the-planet/#comment-2772260
If North America suffers a Volcanic Ash Umbrella or Nuclear Winter, Team Wynntarioweowe just destroyed the 2 Chimneys on North America’s largest Coal Power Plant with 2 new Nox SCR Scrubbers just behind the Chimney on the left of the picture. To add folly to a potential Perfect Storm, Line 4 of the Energy East natural gas pipeline system, TCP’s newest exploded in July 1995 from a Pre-Existing Crack, weakening Line 3 which also exploded burning the Compressor Station. 22 year’s later these are the pipe-dreams that were the Energy East Conn/Version Proposal. Imagine this happening in Heating Season with 24.5 Million people living East of the Manitoba Border. 28% of Ontario electricity is generated by Gas C0-Generation.
The Ontario Liberal government demonstrated a Symbolic Act of Stupidity; ie: Compare the 2 Video Pictures of those people of Influence having Ringside Stand-Up Comedy Positions, viewing the Demolition Blast with nary a Dust Mask nor Haz-Mat Suit for PPE, Personal Protection Equipment! Then they climbed into their cars covered in Fly Ash with its Heavy Metals questioning their mindlessness at their madness of a Media Moment.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/02/28/twin-chimneys-demolished-at-former-nanticoke-generating-station.html
OPG Nanticoke Smokestacks fall down on Feb. 28, 2018
That’s what they did in South Australia, now they have the world’s most expensive power.
The weather forecast for earth hour here in Canada’s capital city is -3C/26F and cloudy. No chance I’m turning off anything for this goofy stunt.
I figure an hour of no lights is the only time a backyard astronomer can see anything in some areas of heavy “light pollution”. Otherwise, never mind.
Really clear nights with low humidity.
12” Mead LX-200
I am amazed how blinkered so many commentators are on this site. You simply cannot look at the big picture which is why so many people ignore your perspective. Time to get real my friends: https://wp.me/p8BEgP-F5
First, remove the log from your own eye. Then, remove the Warmunist goggles, and stop guzzling the Klimate Koolade. Then, maybe you will finally “get real”.
Join the club, then — most everybody here ignores your illusions.
Interesting that you talk about illusions here … the pot calling the kettle black.
We certainly can and do look at the big picture. Most of us looked much wider than you appear to have and have not become participants in groupthink as so many believers have. We research, many have science degrees, and your side has what? A religious fervor and an intense dislike of anyone who disagrees. IE not a bit of science whatsoever.
Please show me some positive trends in terms of mankind’s impact on the environment. Pumping out CO2 is good and the planet is benefitting? Yeah, live in any city, evaluate the health impacts of CO2 pollution on the human organism and then get back to me. You people make me laugh some of your ‘scientific’ arguments are so imbecilic
Ivan, why don’t you tell us what are these health impacts of CO2 pollution on the human organism? Then we can laugh at you some more.
Sorry, Ivan. I can’t see the picture with the lights turned off.
In your head GD … it’s all in your head. Maybe a few narcotics might help to expand your mind a bit. It really needs it.
So drugs are required to comprehend your “big picture” in the dark and conclude it’s a good thing?
Been there, done that back in the early ’70s. Then I got delivered. (I saw the light.)
Earth is not doing well: UN reports see a lonelier planet with fewer plants, animals.
Hey, ivankinsman there is a cure for that. MORE CO2
Yeah, yeah, yeah … and I am Donald Trump
Every survey I have ever read puts Global Warming dead last in the things that people worry about.
So much for ivanski’s latest delusion.
That’s a generalisation if ever I have heard one Marski. You called me quite ‘pathetic’ for citing a source. Can you provide a source for this? Or is it just off the top of your head? To be frank, I think you are talking out of your arse…
BTW, I love it when someone points to their own website in order to support the nonsense they are touting.
Hiding it behind a redirection address in order to disguise the fact that you are doing so is even more pathetic.
Ivankinsman
There is no need for blinkers to go dark, to see nothing, if there is no electricity flowing. Biochemical luminescence is a rare form of seeing in the dark. Blinkered acceptance of foolish, even contradictory, symbolic acts, should be as rare.
I agree that the comments above about ‘what socialism and capitalism’ are require sane rebuttal, but the core analysis, which is that celebrating darkness with the kiddies as soon as the sun is well-set, is idiotic. ‘Doing something’ together is great and builds unity – essential to having a society at all – but unthinking adherence to fads is an expression of ignorance and demonstrates a lack of personal due diligence.
It appears that Earth Hour was originally, mainly aimed at children and training them to get used to being told what to do and think about environmental issues. Preening pre-greening of the young. But prying a glowing screen from the hands of a modern child for an hour is not how to build good will and create better friendships, evidently.
I agree with what you say about energy but definitely do not see AGW as a ‘fad’ along with millions of other people. Let’s just posit this theory: if sceptics are right then no harm done. But what if the sceptics are wrong – you might be prepared to take that risk but many people don’t, and you are in a distinct minority.
All I got as adverts on this and other internet sites yesterday was wwf harping on about this and all I could think was how much of other peoples money have they spent when it was probably given to help polar bears, penguins and other similarly unendangered animals!
James Bull
Earth Hour was started by WWF in 2007. The BBC, of course, celebrates this stupidity every year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-39396407
Why would a bunch of wrestlers care whether your porch light is on?
What is Human Achievement Hour?
Human Achievement Hour is the Competitive Enterprises Institute’s annual celebration of innovation and progress. During this hour, people around the world pay tribute to human ingenuity and advancements in every field from healthcare and energy to communications and transportation.
These achievements by entrepreneurs and innovators allow us to live richer and fuller lives. They also help us solve problems and protect ourselves and our families in unpredictable situations, like emergencies and disasters.
https://cei.org/humanachievementhour
It is original sin. The sin is that we exist. These fools feel guilty for existing. The other part is that in the absence of religion, the only thing they can find that is pure and good is nature, so they deify nature. Nature is good and we are fallen from the garden of eden. The reality that humans in primitive conditions buried most of their children and fought constantly is conveniently forgotten. They should try living in a 3rd world country, and not in a nice hotel by the beach.
There is a book (can’t remember title) about how terrified people were of the dark in past times. Unless there was a moon and no clouds, you could get lost, fall off a cliff, get eaten by wild animals, get robbed and killed.
It was also a History Channel Docu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLWbaUVY91o
The Emperor watching over the dark cities during “Earth Hour”:
“Good. GOOD. Let the stupid flow through you.”
You’re saying you want us to give up cheap virtue-signalling for Lent?
In the U.S., the useful idiots are busy today with trying to disarm the populace. So any mention of Earth Hour will have to wait until after the “March to Ignore Every Single Factor in Mass Killings Except for the Most Popular Choice of Weapon”.
The hour’s preferred flavor of Kool-Aid.
(Odd how today’s “The Greatest Threat to Humanity” always takes a backseat to the next “The Greatest Threat to Humanity” just because the latest one seems to have some momentum in the press.)
And also “The March To Ignore the Top 10 Causes of Death and Focus on the 11th” (you are around 5x more likely to kill yourself than to be murdered with a gun, and 10x more likely to die in an accident, which I am assuming is mostly composed of car accidents, and 20x more likely to be killed by your doctor!)
Every light in the house.
Guess how our local muppets will celebrate “Earth Hour”
With a torch march! Yes marching with burning torches while the community turns off electrical lights for one hour.
How quaint. Fire brings us back to our caveman roots. Sort of like what the Climatists want to do do our civilization.
What I would wish for is a millionaire who could afford to place the posting in the form of an full page advertisement open letter in a few national newspapers in the U.K./U.S.A on “Earth” Day, it would stick in a few craws but many would find the different view informative.
I plan to reread Isaac Asimov’s, “Nightfall”; however, I fear that dark and madness have already descended upon us!
the russians are at it again
Great article Prof. Ross. Well done. Right on the mark. Thanks And coming from academia, makes it even better.
Earth Hour — An hour when the only illumination is from hypocrites looking at their Faceberg status on their smartphones.
Bingo!
On 107.5 FM in and around Waterloo it is called FaceBitch.
All of our electricity is hydro electric. The water flow in the rivers will not stop during earth hour, whether or not the water goes through the turbines or around them. Might as well make and use the electricity.
Earth hour 8:30 P.M. tonight. Lights out, abandon all hope.
Tonight there is darkness on Earth
Earth hour; for watt it is worth.
North Korea is right
It is dark: Earth’s delight.
The darkness shall cover the Earth,
Isaiah 60:2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
Thanks for letting me know – I’ll wash clothes tonight instead of tomorrow.
Will also nudge up the thermostat a notch (it’s a little chilly in here). All lights on, of course (except the back door light – it has a feature that makes it come on only whenever something/someone triggers a sensor, and I’m not going to stand there and open the door again and again for an hour). Will put on the TV even though I don’t plan to watch it (thank God for “mute.”) I’d play the radio, too, but don’t have a non-battery one. Computer is on, of course.
I know it’s not much, but I’m trying to do my part. 😀
And THANKS, Prof. McKitrick!
Barbara
Your back door light: if you turn off the power to it and turn it on again within 10 seconds, it will stay on, for most products.
To reset it to normal function, turn off the power for more than 30 seconds then turn it on again. Almost all auto-on lights work this way. I think 20 seconds is the trigger line.
Earth provides soil, water, vines, grapes, and yeast.
The vines produce oxygen.
The grapes provide sugar.
The yeast manufacture alcohol and Carbon Dioxide.
A day without wine is like a day without sunshine.
Wine is sunshine in a bottle.
Earth is a fantastic thing.
We will celebrate Her tonight with a glass of wine.
Cheers.
We should all bow down to Nikola Tesla,
“let’s take a look at what Nikola Tesla — a man who died broke and alone — has actually given to the world. For better or worse, with credit or without, he changed the face of the planet in ways that perhaps no man ever has. ”
https://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/10-inventions-of-nikola-tesla-that.html
We know that he was undoubtedly persecuted by the energy power brokers of his day — namely Thomas Edison, whom we are taught in school to revere as a genius. He was also attacked by J.P. Morgan and other “captains of industry.” Upon Nikola Tesla’s death on January 7th, 1943, the U.S. government moved into his lab and apartment confiscating all of his scientific research, some of which has been released by the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act. (I’ve embedded the first 250 pages below and have added a link to the .pdf of the final pages, 290 in total).
I wounder were we would be if it wasn’t for people like this ????
I thought about buying a quart of whale oil and a lamp to celebrate the 18th century lifestyle this event promotes, but I could not find any for sale. So instead tonight I will turn on all the lights, and light the kerosene lamp I keep for power outage emergencies and drink a toast to old John D. Rockefeller and Tom Edison and George Westinghouse to thank them for seeing to it that I did not have to grow up in a house that stank of burning whale oil and required cleaning the lampblack from the lamp chimneys every few days.
Communism is Soviet power and electrification of the whole country.
The photos from space of the night earth dramatically illustrate how we waste our resources. Shade fixtures so the light shines down, where it is needed. And once again enjoy the stars!
Lights are on.
Also rented a Peterbilt and left it running – all night,
Yea Earth Hour!
I have replaced most of my incandescent and fluorescent bulbs with LEDs and proudly lit them to display my superior energy saving virtue.
The continued improvement in LEDs is stunning.
The green nutters believe that the day will come that LEDs, when switched on, will generate energy and light. All problems solved.
Is “Earth hour” widely known? Nothing in our nextdoor about it and most lights on in the neighborhood.
I’ve only heard about it through WUWT …
God bless your neighborhood and it’s common sense.
Once a year we have a litter pick in the village times just before the grass verges and hedgerows start growing in spring. This year we were snookered by snow falling the day before the litter pick, but each year it amazes and saddens me with the amount of rubbish, mostly thrown from cars, we find on the roadside. Cans, plastic bottles and sandwich wrappers. Last year I collected over three large bin liners with rubbish from a 400 yard stretch of roadside near my house. What’s lot of slobs our society has become! Yet the current issue du jour has become plastics that are polluting the oceans, started by David Attenborough’s programme Blue Planet 2. Maybe we should start by. Not throwing rubbish everywhere on land, before it makes its way to the oceans. (Rant over!)
+1000
8:30 PM is not a good time for me so instead I will turn off the lights when I go to bed. In anticipation of the event I made sure the lights were off before I left the house in the morning but I turned them on when It got dark because I did not want to have my dinner in the dark and I had some work to do on the computer. In the spirit of Earth Day, I will always try to turn off most of the lights in the house when I go to bed each night because we have all got to do our part. We also try to turn off lights when we are not using them so as to lower our electric bill. We are trying not to waste money.
Maybe suppliers of power should shut power and fuel off for a week (Atlas Shrugging). It wouldn’t be name by the gang green. It would be dubbed by most as Hell on Earth Week.
I’m going to leave the heat on too.
And eat a steak.