Friday, March 27, 2009

Earth Hour: A Curmudgeon's View

Whooee! Well, friends an' foes, I'm doin' some recyclin' an' I reckon it's OK on accounta it's all about Earth Hour. My boogin' buddy Balbulican has a post on how the anti-Earthers can carry their stoopidity to the next level. I'm recyclin' my comment from StageLeft and usin' it fer my boog story. I ain't sure how many KwH I'm savin'.

I’m a bigass treehugger an’ ol’ Mother Earth is who I fight for every day but I’m a little cynical about Earth Hour. Oh, I’ll participate. It’ll be easy. Ma and I always walk the dogs fer about an hour a night. Usually, we leave the back porch light on but on Saturday, I’ll pull the main breaker down in the basement before we go out and reset all the clocks when we come back.

Here in small town Ontariariario, we get useta power outages — even when yer livin’ in the shadow of the Nanticoke Generating Station. I hafta reset the clocks about 6x a year anyways. One more time ain’t gonna hurt much, sez I.

Reason I’m a bit cynical on Earth Hour is I get the impression some folks think if they turn off their lights fer an hour a year, they’re actually making some difference vis-a-vis savin’ the planet. I reckon symbolism is a little beyond some folks.

I also am a little concerned with the message that conservation involves freezing in the dark. There are far more effective and less inconvenient ways to use less energy than to turn off everything for an hour a year and then carry on with the usual wasteful practices the rest of the time.

Earth Hour can be fun and informative and I’m maybe a curmudgeon but I’ll do my bit on Saturday night. And, man-o-man, do I ever figger that them Small Dead Anti-Earthers is about as anti-conservative as they can get. Wanton waste does not equal conservatism in anybody’s dictionary.

JB

1 comment:

Jennifer Smith said...

I'll be at a geek convention tomorrow night, and I somehow doubt that the hotel is going to be turning off he lights. Last year I was singing in a choir concert, and we turned out all the lights for one song: 'What a Wonderful World', which we sang by candlelight. Not the whole hour, though - most of our members are too chicken to sing by memory even though they all insist they can't read music.

But yeah, I get what you're saying. I used to spend summers and most weekends over the winter at the cottage in Muskoka, so going hours or days without power is no biggie.

I remember the big blackout a few years ago. We had no trouble at all. We had a lovely venison steak dinner cooked over the propane stove and eaten in the driveway by the light of the open van hatch while we listened to the radio.

The next day I made soap on that same stove.