Turning Out the Lights on Freedom
The End Result of Earth Hour Thinking is Visible from Space
By Mark I Posted in Earth Hour | Energy | Environment | Global Warming | Liberals | Miscellanea | radical environmentalists — Comments (15) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Did you turn out your lights on Saturday night between 8 and 9 PM to observe Earth Hour? If you didn’t, or if you were like me and turned extra lights on just to Fight the Power!, you exercised that most precious of rights and the one ingredient most essential to maintaining a free society: personal choice. But the peddlers of Earth Hour nonsense don’t want you to have that right. Not, at least, when it comes to lifestyle decisions that may impact on Global Warming.
Note that I use the original term, Global Warming, not the newly preferred moniker "climate change." Climate change only came about when it became clear that Global Warming wasn’t selling so well. I, for one, will not let the alarmists get away with moving the thermometers by changing the terms. But I digress.
If the environmental movement has its way, your betters in the Sierra Club, and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on [Global Warming] will dictate to you when you must turn off lights, what kind car or unreasonable facsimile of one you can drive, where you can live, what kind of job you can take, even how many children you can have. Does all that sound familiar? It does to me. In fact, there is one place I can think of where there is near 100% compliance with Earth Hour every night and where all of the above is already true.
Read on…
On the right we have a satellite picture of the Korean Peninsula taken at night. Not this past Saturday, but you’ll forgive the discrepancy in service of a larger point. The bottom half, of course, is South Korea. South Korea is capitalist, democratic, and free. The northern half is North Korea, which…isn’t.
Which of the two Koreas do Global Warming alarmists think is the more responsible actor? I’ll bet it isn’t the South. Just look at all those lights. Are they really all necessary? Surely some moderation can be exercised in the name of saving the planet. And if not, the government should step in to enforce some kind of reasonable energy consumption policy. And so the thinking goes. North Korea is dark at night for reasons wholly unrelated to Global Warming. But it is surely the future that awaits us all if the alarmists have their way.
North Korea’s brutally repressive communist government, along with its dark nights, is the end result of the kind of "for the common good" thinking that Global Warming alarmists peddle. It is an extreme example, to be sure, but the parallels are there. In order for the environmental movement to get what it wants, that is the suppression of personal choice "for the good of the planet," governments must become, progressively, more intrusive and less tolerant of individual decisions. They must enforce conformity to keep societal order. Nothing riles a crowd like the notion that some other class or privileged group is getting special treatment. So governments must place everyone in the same boat, and keep them there, to maintain control. That’s how governments like North Korea’s stay in power.
If you think that scenario is a bridge too far from a call for a voluntary darkening of American households for one hour on one Saturday night, consider this. Earlier this year, the California Energy Commission, the state agency that sets efficiency standards for household appliances used in the state, proposed a new regulation mandating radio controlled thermostats in homes. The thermostats could be controlled by the State to change homeowners’ pre-set temperatures in times of emergency, overriding the personal choices of potentially millions of private citizens. Read the words of Dr. Arthur Rosenfeld, a commission member, and see his justification for the idea.
"You realize there are times — very rarely, once every few years — when you would be subject to a rotating outage and everything would crash including your computer and traffic lights, and you don’t want to do that.
If you can control rotating outages by letting everyone in the state share the pain, there’s a lot less pain to go around." (emphasis mine)
Share in the pain to reduce the impact? No, Dr. Rosenfeld, there’s more pain, not less. More because the government has reached into a private citizen’s home and taken away his ability to control his own living space as he sees fit. There may be less energy usage and even less rolling blackouts, but at the cost of individual freedom, and all in the name of saving the planet.
Like Earth Hour, installation of the controllable thermostats started out as a voluntary initiative in California. Apparently not enough homes volunteered, and stronger action was needed to achieve the goal. How long before a public utility near you is goaded by some commission into offering voluntary installation of dimmer switches or timers for light fixtures? Though the proposal has been shot down thanks to a tremendous public outcry, the alarmists will be back.
At their core, radical environmental movements are as much about controlling people as they are about controlling the impact on the environment. Choice is as much the enemy as carbon; freedom as much as fossil fuels. And all the Earth Hours they can arrange will not satisfy them because it isn’t about the lights. Global Warming enthusiasts are after your right to decide how and where to live your life for the greater good. If you don’t willingly volunteer to go along, they will find a way for you to "share the pain."
Turning Out the Lights on Freedom 15 Comments (0 topical, 15 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Let's see if others follow you.
This post says nothing about whteher or not Global Warming is actually happening. It describes some activists as alarmists, but does not challege the basic tenets of the theory.
Rather, it is all about the policy, and how governments can and will curtail freedom in the name of the greater good. I'm not willing to submit, scientific consensus be damned.
-----------------------
Damn the Obama! Full speed ahead!
The only thing that is settled is that there are a lot of Judas "scientists" out there that understand how to secure their place at the public teat of funding. There's plenty of evidence out there that shows the earth has STOPPED warming since 1998 and that Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' is a blatant lie. I'd like to know how you can explain this past winter's extreme cold. Pray tell, how does cooling equal warming?
Tim Schieferecke
There is more than enough evidence that global warming is a real phenomenon and that it is largely caused by human-produced greenhouse gases to warrant taking action.
Man, if proof by repeated assertion actually worked, this would be pure Gospel. Unfortunately, it's wrong on at least three levels, each worse than the last.
On the simplest level, I agree that the earth has warmed. Problem is, it's cooled too, and I'm not sure (and a lot of scientists aren't sure) which one it's doing just at the moment. Even if I were to grant that we're warmer than we were in 1960 (and we are), and even if I convince you to grant that we're NOT warmer than we were in 1998 (and I don't know if I can do that, but really, we are), it doesn't matter.
Because the second wrong thing is that there is no evidence that definitively establishes mankind as the major, or even a partial contributor to global warming. There is the increased CO2, of course, which is a fact, but when you try to figure out the relationship between that and changes in global temperature, you get into models and theories and a lot of science that doesn't seem to agree with itself very much.
Whether it's ocean buoys that must be broken because they don't show the expected temperature increase, or Arctic ice that's regenerating itself, or even satellite measurements of the temperature in the troposphere that don't seem to add up, the models are at best interesting but are hardly proven. And in the absence of well-supported models, or any kind of prospective study (obviously missing), we're left with expert scientific opinion and not a lot more.
The question itself is so heavily politicized that it's hard to trust the pronouncements of (largely government-funded and largely warming-dependent) prominent climatologists, and even there we have enough heretics and quibblers that the look to a knowledgeable outsider is that the Emperor's clothes are pretty thin.
But all of that pales in comparison with the third error, which is the statement ex cathedra that "There is more than enough evidence" ... "to warrant taking action." The evidence, while unstated, is apparently "enough." And there are no limits on the action, which suits those whose primary purpose is control. It's really just a fancy way of saying "western civilization needs to freeze in the dark for a while, in penance for their sins."
But there's no way to argue with this. It's not falsifiable, it's not scientific, it's just a statement of faith. I don't happen to agree with it, nor do a great number of people on all sides of the political fence. If you consider this to be partisan, so be it, but this is at its heart a social and political question and not a scientific question. An important enough one, as it turns out, that repeatedly asserting one side is unlikely to convince very many people.
1. What constitutes settled science and scientific fact
2. What constitutes a sufficiently well known fact for the government to expropriate trillions of dollars ?
3. Where is the scientific proof that dealing with carbon emissions is the best way to counter it ?
4. Just how much of the change in temperature is natural, man made and unknown.
5. Just what are ramifications predicted for climate change. Just how many of the prior predictions have been completely wrong.
6. How come the current best predictions for warming have been proven wrong.
7. Why do the models of how AGW is supposed to work keep coming up wrong.
Just what would it take to change your mind on this topic Mr. "I am not an activist or partisan"
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Gore phenomenon. I might agree that climate is changing (isn't it always), but if it is warming (a scientific dispute), it is most likely caused by the sun. Since this seems to be at odds with the sunspot activity (low activity, more cooling - and the global temperatures are dropping), I wonder why you are not worried about global cooling. Either way, the chances that man can either cause or cure the problem is minimal (approaching zero - almighty man!).
Either get used to the climate as it changes or suffer the consequences. You are free to worry though (please take my share) - Someone will, or I should say, have taken the necessary steps to make money from this fabrication. Please feel free to contribute.
Formally known as Deagle... "Golf is a way of life..."
one picture is worth a thousand kilowatt hours.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
I was thinking about writing something like that when Cafe Hayek linked to it the other day. It really says something about what the AGW crowd is really after.
Fighting for conservatism one day at a time.
I would have turned on absolutely every light in the house last Saturday, but its not my electric bill to pay. As it stood we just had a couple of more lights on than usual in the living room and back yard deck.
"If we ever forget that we are One Nation under God, then we will be a Nation gone under." - Ronald Reagan
"... And I thought of a satellite photograph I have on my desk in Washington, taken of the Korean peninsula at night. And it shows the demilitarized zone, and south of it, its all electricity, and energy and freedom. And north of it is pitch black at night except for one pinprick of light in the capital city of Pyongyang.
The people in North Korea and South Korea, the same number of people, the same resources north and south, one country many years ago, and today there is an eight inch deferential in the height -- the people in the north are eight inches shorter because of a lack of nutrition. They are taking people in the North Korean military that are under 5 feet tall and less than 100 pounds -- men! Because of a lack of nutrition. You can just see the difference between a free political system and a free economic system versus a command economy and a vicious dictatorship repressing the people of North Korea."
Sec Def Rumsfeld: Troop Talk at The National Training Center.
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
IIRC, a reference to the satellite photo was made in a previous post by AcademicElephant in which we discussed the futility of the North Korean sky-rocket display.
However, I did track down Sec Def Rumsfeld's speech.
Easing back toward the OP: The keyword is freedom... economic and political.
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
Whether or not global warming is occurring is a scientific issue, to be resolved by scientific research. It is NOT to be prejudged by politicians or mindless "activists"--on EITHER side, Left or Right--who are simply looking for the answer that is most consistent with their preconceived political notions.
Conservatives and liberals are entitled to promote their own policies, not to promote their own scientific facts. The value of pi, or the distance from the Earth to the Sun, doesn't change just because of which political party you happen to belong to.
There seem to be an awful lot of conservatives who have simply decided that global warming "must be" a left-wing myth--because they can't deal with the implications if it turned out to be a reality. And so, they are vulnerable to a few scientists, most of whom have already been refuted by their colleagues, who continue to try to keep "the controversy" alive. Much as the tobacco companies tried very hard to keep "the controversy" alive over "whether" tobacco smoke was carcinogenic. We now know that deliberate fraud was involved there.
In science, even with the most widely-held theories such as the constancy of the speed of light in free space, there will always be one or two experiments that will fail to reproduce the results, and one or two scientists who will refuse to accept it. The laws of probability and experimental error virtually guarantee that will happen. (The odds against winning the grand prize in your state lottery are much higher. Yet someone does win it.)
There is more than enough evidence that global warming is a real phenomenon and that it is largely caused by human-produced greenhouse gases to warrant taking action. There is far more evidence for that, than there was for the hypothesis that Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction that he was going to give to terrorists to attack us. Yet we invaded Iraq on that limited evidence anyway. It's odd that some conservatives who said that we must invade Iraq--even though all we had was a hypothesis of what conceivably might go wrong and some limited inconclusive evidence to support it--are now saying that we cannot do anything about global warming because it's not 100.000% proven beyond any doubt. Evidently they can adjust their required level of credibility just to maximize political gain. That's not a good thing.