Zaterdag 20.30u is het voor de zevende keer gaapverwekkend Earth Hour en André Kuipers en Carice van Houten zijn van de partij. André zit ver weg in zijn ruimtestation (zou hij echt alle electronica uitschakjelen daar boven?) dus hebben wij het rijk alleen met Carice die ons allerhartelijkst uitnodigt een uurtje in haar darkroom door te brengen. Met het zwoel uitspreken van de WNF-slogan “Geef de aarde door” verzoekt deze kinderloze actrice de Nederlandse man natuurlijk om in een wilde orgie haar eitjes te bevruchten. Zie hierrr op deze Google Search welke idioten en achterlijke gemeenten nog meer allemaal meedoen aan Earth Hour 2012.

Human Achievement Hour
Nu dan jullie aandacht voor het echt belangwekkende evenement komende zaterdag 20.30u: Human Achievement Hour van het Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI):

Human Achievement Hour (HAH) is a celebration of individual freedom and appreciation of the achievements and innovations that people have used to improve their lives throughout history. To celebrate Human Achievement Hour, participants need only to spend the hour from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm on March 31 enjoying the benefits of capitalism and human innovation: Gather with friends in the warmth of a heated home, watch television, take a hot shower, drink a beer, call a loved one on the phone, or listen to music.

You can also utilize one of man’s greatest achievements, the Internet, to join CEI’s in-house party, which will live stream right here at CEI.org beginning at 8:00 pm EST. You can use the chat function to tell us how you are celebrating human achievement in your neighborhood.

Vorig jaar schreef ik al over de Canadese journalist David Menzies die op HAH een set mega-lichtbundels in zijn tuin zette om de plek van zijn open straat-BBQ te merkeren (zie artikel). Geenstijl.nl pikte deze storyline toen op (zie hier) en ik hoop dat ze dat dit jaar weer doen. Mooi is de beschrijving van Earth Hour op Wikipedia. Er is een hele paragraaf gewijd aan kritiek.

Het onderstaande lijstje zet toch wel aan het denken….

The criticisms of Earth Hour include:

  • In March 2010, the Telegraph quoted electricity experts that “it could therefore result in an increase in carbon emissions” due to complications related to rapidly lowering then raising electricity generation.[78]
  • In February 2010, Rick Giles, president of ACT on Campus, the youth wing of New Zealand’s ACT Party, appeared on the morning television show Sunrise to denounce Earth Hour and instead suggested the celebration of “Edison Hour”. He argued that Earth Hour is an “anti-technology” cause, and that people will simply use candles instead, which is undesirable as they are petroleum-based. He argued that if we are heading for some kind of disaster, it makes sense to use technology to combat this.[79] Rick quickly gained notoriety for saying “I think my argument is so powerful that it’s not necessary to talk about it”.
  • The Christian Science Monitor said that most candles are made from paraffin, a heavy hydrocarbon derived from crude oil, a fossil fuel, and that depending on how many candles a person burns (if one uses candles during Earth Hour), whether or not they normally use compact fluorescent light bulbs, and what source of energy is used to produce their electricity, in some cases, replacing light bulbs with candles will cause an increase, instead of a decrease, in carbon dioxide emissions.[80]
  • An alternative celebration of “Human Achievement Hour” was promoted by the libertarian think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute to celebrate the advancement of human prosperity.[81] Participants in this celebration were asked to “celebrate the achievements of humanity such as eating dinner, seeing a film, driving around, keeping the heat on in your home”.[82]
  • The Ayn Rand Institute wrote, “Participants spend an enjoyable sixty minutes in the dark, safe in the knowledge that the life-saving benefits of industrial civilization are just a light switch away… Forget one measly hour with just the lights off. How about Earth Month… Try spending a month shivering in the dark without heating, electricity, refrigeration; without power plants or generators; without any of the labor-saving, time-saving, and therefore life-saving products that industrial energy makes possible.”[83]
  • Although in support of Earth Hour, the “Carbon Sense Coalition” wants Earth Hour to be renamed “Blackout Night”, and to be held outside on the shortest and coldest day of the year “…to prepare our population for the dark days ahead”.[84][85]
  • Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, wrote, “It is vital to make solar and other new technology cheaper than fossil fuels quickly so we can turn off carbon energy sources for a lot longer than one hour and keep the planet running… Fossil fuels literally gave us an enlightenment, by lighting our world and giving us protection from the fury of the elements. It is ironic that today’s pure symbolism should hark back to a darker age.”[86]
  • On March 29, one day after Earth Hour 2009, Dân Trí daily newspaper published an article about the other side of Earth Hour. It was concerned that many young people chose to drive around the darkened cities for fun, exhausting petroleum instead of electricity and resulting in long-time traffic jams.[87]
  • During the 2010 Earth Hour in the city of Uusikaupunki in Finland, a 17-year-old female motorcyclist hit a 71-year-old man, who was walking on the street instead of the sidewalk for an unknown reason. The man died from his injuries, while the motorcyclist and her passenger were uninjured. At the time of the accident the street lights had been turned off as part of the Earth Hour. The police stated that the lack of street lighting may have played a part in the accident, while the mayor believed the city’s street lights would have been too dim to prevent it.[88][89]
  • Jeremy Clarkson, host of the BBC motoring programme Top Gear, confessed to switching on all electrical items in his home as a protest against the perceived impact of Earth Hour, claiming the event would have little to no effect on attitudes towards climate change.[90]

De groen gemarkeerde maakt de absurditeit van earth hour pas echt duidelijk. Dat André Kuipers zegt mee te doen in zijn zwaar van electronica afhankelijke capsule is ook een lachertje. Laat Carice volgens jaar Earth Hour vieren op een intensive care afdeling en dan de patiënten echt enthousiast maken voor een uurtje zonder stroom. Of doe eens moedig en zet alle TV zenders echt een uur lang op een donker testbeeld. Nee, zoals alle groene dingen is Earth Hour pure window dressing.

Omdat dit zoooo obvious is, doen zelfs de grote groene profeten maar halfslachtig mee. Zie dit verhaal over hoe Al Gore in maart 2009 niet eens de schijnwerpers op zijn oprijlaan uitzette. Daarom moeten alle mensen met gezond verstand Human Achievement Hour omarmen en echt meedoen. Geenstijl (hier) kwam vorig jaar al met wat suggesties. Graag van jullie in de reacties de beste meest respectvolle manieren om aan je buren en aan je vrienden te laten zien dat wij niet gehersenspoelde mensen de technologische vooruitgang omarmen en dat wij zielsgelukkig zijn met onze welvaart- en welzijnsbrengende stabiele energievoorziening.

Persoonlijk meen ik ook nog eens dat we de plantjes mogen trakteren tijdens HAH en dat je dus bijvoorbeeld een uurtje lang de auto met lichten aan op de oprit kunt zetten.

Human Achievement Hour

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