Earth Hour

Well I won't say that this Earth Hour idea is a bad one; that would be perceived as the equivalent of kicking puppies by most people. I would however like to point out to people that if you do choose to participate in Earth Hour you shouldn't be all that proud of yourself. You are not really doing much to help the environment or global warming. In some cases what you do in place of leaving the light on my actually be worse. I've heard people say they are going to turn out the lights and just have a barbecue or a fire in their backyard. Well excuse me Mr. Green; I'm no expert but replacing the fossil fuel spent to generate your electricity for an hour by simply burning other fossil fuels is moronic. Especially if you don't even know where the hell you are getting your electricity. Maybe it comes from wind or hydro generation. If that is the case then you are actually increasing your carbon footprint.

I have nothing against the Earth Hour trying to shed light on the issues with our environment. The harm they do comes from people thinking these band-aid type solutions are actually going to make a difference. The attitude that turning your lights off for an hour and driving a hybrid is going to save the earth from global warming or a dozen other environmental disasters just sitting on our door step waiting to rear their ugly heads is utter nonsense. The issue is extremely complex and needs more than feel good awareness campaigns. There have been awareness campaigns for people starving in Africa and guess what people; they are still starving. Live aid, Farm aid, Band aid, Kool aid and far to many other awareness campaigns to name here have come and gone and every single one of the issues they were meant shine a light on and ultimately solve; are still with us. Imagine that. An awareness campaign that accomplishes nothing.

The reason they ultimately don't help is that we rally around the issue, get on the band wagon, create a big ruckus and make a lot of noise. Then we throw in our 2 cents worth of contribution, pat ourselves on the back and go back to living our lives the exact way we have always lived them. We then have the audacity to act indignant; like we are all doing our part and its those 3rd world countries like China; bringing a coal fired generator on line nearly every week. Those are the truly evil doers; well them and that Verizon bastard - with his big network following everyone around all the time. You can't tell me that is environmentally friendly.

Well I got news for you. Those generators supply power to the factories; that build the cars you drive, make the clothes on your back, the shoes on your feet, the consumer electronics in your home, the couch that is making you more potato like everyday, the cell-phone surgically attached to your ear and practically everything else you own. If you want to help the environment. Try living your life with less. Less clothing, less consumer electronics, less of the creature comforts we have in our homes, smaller homes and cars with less horsepower. Now that is something that would have a real impact on the environment.

What about the shipping. Every single item in your home got their because it was shipped by fossil fuels. The table you eat dinner at is made of wood harvested in a forest (one of natures ways of truely managing global warming) with chainsaw that uses fossil fuels. Hauled to a mill on a truck using fossil fuels. The mill refining the timber is run on fossil fuel. It's shipped to manufacturer on a truck using more fossil fuel. Hand crafted on a CNC router in a factory run on electricity, purchased from an electrical grid fueled by coal fired generators. Then it is shipped overseas on a ship that burns more fossil fuel then you and every single person at your dining room table could possibly burn in their vehicles in their entire lives. Apparently the only source of wood to make your furniture is always on the exact opposite side of the earth from where ever you are located. Your table then sits in a temperature controlled warehouse that uses more electricity. It gets shipped thousands of miles by a truck that burns diesel fuel, uses oil, needs tires, needs regular maintenance and ultimately, replacing; which guess what folks? It all requires more fossil fuel or electricity (which is mostly fossil fuel burnt in incredibly large amounts, in very remote places on the planet because we don't want those smelly things anywhere near us and the only way to ship electricity is by making huge amounts of it and forcing more than we can possibly need down thousands of miles of electrical lines, so the power is their when we flip a switch. Oh yea, the electrical system will need maintenance too, and that will mean using more fossil fuel. After all that, your table is still at the store. You still have to surf the Internet, using electricity/fossil fuel. Then you have to drive to at least 3 locations to get all touchy feely with the furniture; and the whole time you will whine and complain about the outrageous price of gas. Ironically though you will feel good about the 2 cent carbon tax that was added to the price of gas to combat global warming; never realizing the the money goes into general revenue to fund salary surveys, political pension plans and double digit pay raises for the politicians. And just to rub salt in the wounds you have to listen to them on the radio complaining about needing more tax revenue to fix the health care system; as you drive all over town to pick out your brand new dining room table. Then you have to arrange for delivery on a truck that uses fossil fuel, you have to take time off from work to be their for the delivery - so you actually drive to and from work twice that day; using guess what? More fossil fuel. But that's OK you can feel good about your purchase because you made sure the dining room table you purchased was made from wood that came from a sustainable forestry operation. To bad you are oblivious to the fact that sustainable forestry uses significantly more fossil fuel. That in turn means that Fort Mc Murray needs to dig up even more bitchamen; literally trading one environmental disaster for another. But it's all worth it when you have the family all around the dining room table enjoying the meal that fossil fuel cooked for you and you spouse says "Honey, I think we need to paint the whole main floor of the house to go with the new dining room furniture." And the cycle starts all over. I hope you are literally ill after reading this paragraph because it made me sick to write it.

So if you want to help the environment; think about all the fossil fuel you burn every single time you buy something. ANYTHING, right down to the produce in your calorie conscious salad. Collectively your lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado and dandelion salad has probably traveled more miles than you will on your next ten vacations. Which makes me think of the airlines and overnight shipping and the 1.3 billion dollars federal express spent on fossil fuel last quarter. Does it ever end. No it doesn't It's fossil fuel that's good to the last drop, not coffee. Face it, if you are a middle class citizen living in North America you are a consumer junkie and therefore you are a complete and utter environmental disaster all by yourself. So good on you for participating in Earth Hour, just don't go around thinking you actually fixed the problem.

One last thing about electricity. Its not a commodity that is easily stored. The coal goes in the generator; the generator produces the electricity; the electricity is pushed down the lines. If you turn on the light switch its used, if you don't turn on the light the electricity is gone, it's not saved for you to use later. So when it comes to Earth Hour, ask your self this question. Are the men and machines feeding coal into the furnaces actually going to stop for the hour we all sit in the dark singing Kum Ba Yah. Wake up McFly, the answer to that question is NO. WHY? Because the power grid has to be fed enough fuel to produce enough electricity to meet the some anticipated fictitious quasi guesstimate of the expected demand in the near future. Power is not produced on immediate consumption. "Hey Bill, can you throw another shovel of coal in the furnace so this loud mouthed schnook can post his stupid rant on the Internet." Sorry folks, it just doesn't work that way. It's not like the water faucet in your home where you just turn it on and off whenever you feel like it. So in a nutshell if we want to reduce the amount of fossil fuel we burn producing electricity. We have to cut our consumption continually, across the board, all the time, till we die. That's a hell of a lot longer than the Earth Hour for most of us. Unless I find that Verizon bastard.

Even if we had Earth Day they would not slow down feeding coal to power grid. Maybe if we had Earth Week they would slow down around day 6. Next time we should have Earth Month. Let's all live in the dark for a month and see how much power that saves. Right now you are thinking you couldn't last a day let alone a month. Well let's all go drive around in our hybrids oblivious to the fact that the batteries in those damn things are more of an environmental disaster than the fossil fuel required to power a fleet of hummers it would take to run these things off the roads.

I know I sound like a granola crunching, socks and sandals wearing, tree hugging, eco-terrorist; but honestly the thing that really drove me to write this post was all the feel good 30 second media hype surrounding Earth Hour, that is all such utter bullshit. I'm just trying to call a spade a spade. Speaking of spades I would like to use one across the back of David Suzuki's head. That guy totally annoys me. When I see him or that that other guy, Al Gore, the guy that claimed he invented the Internet. Shhhheeeesh, what a bone head. In my opinion he is just a stupid turd, but that is a whole other post. Who uses the word "turd" anymore. I think that word should be exclusively applied to Al Gore. From now on if you are reading any of my posts and you hear me use that word you will know I'm talking about Al Gore.

There are well over 6 billion people on the planet now. We are all becoming more and more consumer driven. Plus we all want the modern conveniences that electricity brings to our homes and lives. These facts more than anything else will continue to drive global warming into the future. If you want to stop global warming, then you need to start thinking about a bumper sticker campaign promoting the use of condoms! Surely we don't need all 6 billion of us. I can think of three guys I could live with out; not mentioning any names... David Suzuki, that turd Al Gore and the Verizon bastard. We need power that does not rely on fossil fuel. Ultimately that means research into better solar converters and heaters, low-voltage DC power consumption in the home. More wind power, and letting consumers sell power back to the grid. The challenges in making Hydrogen fuel cells viable must be solved. 85% of the electricity produced around the world is based on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are at the height of their production now and it won't last very long at these levels. We need to burn it cleaner and more efficiently. We will also most likely need to replace it long before other more environmentally friendly forms of power are viable. This means we will have no choice in the future but to damn the rivers and drown some cute and furry endangered forest creature into extinction. I can only hope the flood takes that Verizon bastard too. Start thinking about having a nuclear reactor in your backyard too. The world's hunger for power will most likely not be satiated any other way in the not too distant future. Think Homer Simpson and Mr.Burns. The planet might actually be cooler in the future, but your face may still melt.

You know what is totally ironic about this Earth Hour and everyone sitting around in the dark for an hour. Nine months later there will be a population explosion, and isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place. Now is that ironic or what? Actually, I'm not sure if that is irony; maybe I should call Alanis Morrisette. She should know.

Please remember that as a professional loudmouthed schnook I'm allowed to talk this way and even though I make some serious points the mud slinging is all meant in jest. I'm Foghorn Leghorn folks and I sa I sa I sa don't let yourself be hornswoggled by the eco-terrorists. They will give you methane producing bum steer, and that won't help the environment either. And just for your personal imformation I will be bowling for toasters during the the Earth Hour and I have no idea what the bowling alley plans on doing.

If you want more info on the Earth Hour go here. http://www.thestar.com/specialsections/earthhour