Earth Hour

Shauny, a Black Swan fan, is struggling with the wool that's been pulled over his eyes and that's making it really hard for him to respond to my criticism of that awful movie. Being a good bloke, I thought I'd buy him some time by complaining about something else: Earth Hour.

Earth Hour is the ultimate in token gesture-ism, or, as I saw it called, "slacktivism". Let's all pretend we care about the environment by turning the lights off for one hour every year. In a non-leap year, there are 8760 hours. Most of the people who get right in behind Earth Hour are oblivious to environmental concerns for the other 8759 hours in the year (99.98858%). Pathetic.

What little we save in energy, some of us gain in smugness. I overheard Selena from Wadestown talking to her sister, our good friend, Helena form Seatoun. As an unknowing member of the smug brigade, Selena said this:

"Oh, I did my bit. Did you see the way I turned those lights off? Did you see the way I was on my computer for an extra hour the night before, messaging my 12,098 Facebook friends to tell them to join my Earth Hour group and watch my Earth Hour Youtube video before forwarding the information to their friends so they could spend an hour doing the same? Did you see the way I drove my Hummer down the road to the mall and bought candles so we could have light without using electricity? Did you see how I chopped the tree down and burnt it in my backyard so we could be warm for an hour without the heater? Yeah, I did my bit. Don't no one tell me I didn't! Oh, it breaks my heart to see the Earth being destroyed...."

Ugh. Buy a bike and ride it.

PS: What's possibly even dumber than Earth Hour are the movements to boycott gas stations on certain days. As idiot organisers drive past the gas stations to see if their boycott is working, they're playing right into the hands of the large oil companies they're trying to punish. The only way to trouble gas companies is to stop using gas. Switch to alternate fuel powered vehicles, public transport, cycling or walking. How this isn't obvious to the morons who try this shit every year is beyond me.