Earth Hour

So, how many of my loyal readers participated in this event?

I bet I can guess.

In case you didn't even know about Earth Hour, allow me to briefly explain. Earth Hour was started a few years ago in an attempt to "raise awareness" about global warming/climate change with a symbolic turning off of household lights for one hour, one night a year. This year, Earth Hour was observed on Saturday night from 8:30-9:30 pm.

My response to this....I wanted to turn on every single light I had. I didn't, but neither did I turn off anything I would normally have on. We continued to keep the lights on in our living room, in Emily's room and we continued to watch March Madness on the t.v. In short, we completed ignored the "EVENT".

Well....that's not entirely true.

Actually, to be specific, I began by reading an article on Foxnews.com about Earth Hour and it's effectiveness, or more accurately, it's complete lack of effect. In the article (which is an entertaining read for a lot of good reasons), a researcher from a thinktank in Denmark mentions that when people turn off their normal household lights, they then turn to candlelight for sources of light. This simple, seemingly natural alternative actually does more to harm the environment than regular incandescent or flourescent lights.

According to Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, " 'Candles seem natural, but are almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light globes, and more than 300 times less efficient than fluorescent lights. If you use one candle for each extinguished globe, you're essentially not cutting CO2 at all, and with two candles you'll emit more CO2. Moreover, candles produce indoor air pollution 10 to 100 times the level of pollution caused by all cars, industry and electricity production.' "

And true to what Lomborg states, candlelight is exactly what people turned to. So basically, the only thing that all the conscientious observers of Earth Hour accomplished was to quite possibly cause more air pollution and absolutely no positive effect on climate change.

Earth Hour was a complete feel-good event that did nothing.

But wait, don't try to tell one of these climate change believers that! I generally try not to comment on message board-type forums about political things, but I was feeling fiesty, so I did. I posted on a local news forum and on a parenting message board in which I participate. (I was replying to posts about Earth Hour, not starting them, just for reference.) Below is what I posted and then a couple of choice responses I received:

My comment: "Apparently those participating don't realize that candlelight is much less efficient than incandescent or florescent light and pollutes the air far more as well. This is simply something to make the environmentalists feel good rather than a move that will actually make a difference. Of course, I don't buy into the whole global warming/climate change hoax anyhow."

A comment I received (from someone called "concerned parent"): "You are completely missing the point. We must help preserve the night skies now for future generations, it is grossly effecting more than our childrens' opportunity to view our God given stars, but also the eco system. The nocturnal animals are out of whack, not to mention the documented medical evidence that the loss of the night skies is effecting our health. Before you comment spend some time on the research before you draw a conclusion. It's our responsibility to preserve all that we can for future generations."

I personally love when someone accuses me of drawing conclusions without any research. Where is his/her research? I also love that we are supposed to go back to the dark ages (pun intended) to save the animals preferred way of life.

And from the ever popular "anonymous" : "You are all haters."

Yeah, that's an intelligent argument!

And this was the response from the parenting board: "Christina, if for no other reason I would recommend participation because it was *fun!* We loved sitting around and coloring and playing hang man around the table. Being March Madness season dh has been glued to the tv but Earth Hour made us all just hang out together. yes, I am aware that some families do things like this regularly (color, play games...) and we do as well. But, it was a lot of fun to just do this together and know that other people are doing the same thing. The spirit of community was there and it was a great experience. Candle vs bulb- I'm not really convinced by the Fox News account but even if it were true I am sure we saved electricity b/c we turned off everything but the fridge. It was a "feel good event" and it did feel good. I recommend everyone try it with their kids."

Now, while this well-meaning commenters point about family time is perfectly fine, the part that I put in bold print exemplifies all that is wrong about events like Earth Hour. It felt good, so it must be good. We "must" have saved electricity, (because how could we be wrong?) Fox News (or more accurately, anyone who doesn't totally buy into the climate change alarms) can't be believed and must be discredited. It was fun being part of "the in-crowd". It's good to be popular.

Well, the majority believed the world was flat once upon a time too....