Earth Hour? Pffft. FIAT LUX!

The annual idiotic nonsense is upon us again, though I haven't found a response better than this one by a Canadian professor from a few years ago.  Do read the whole thing.  See too what Bjørn Lomborg has to say.  Perhaps celebrate Human Achievement Hour instead?  (Related thoughts.)  Awesome Aussie Tim Blair is treating this Earth Day with his usual panache (see his hilarious writeup from 2012).  As for me, I intend to carry on doing what I had planned to do tonight regardless of silly, sanctimonious publicity stunts.  It's March Madness, people, and my compatriots and I will be in front of the TV!

Gaia's Health Matters More Than Yours, Mere Human

Good grief.

In Praise of the Incandescent Light Bulb

I remain devoted to incandescent light bulbs.  I tried the new morally superior ones, and I HATED THEM.  As musical satirist Remy does point out with lyrics in his new music video, “If that new light bulb is so amazing, then why don’t people just go buy that light bulb?” 

Dim Bulbs in the Government

Meanwhile, I'm stocking up on incandescents ... I mean, heatballs!

LOL: Polar Bear Ice Cubes

Annoy global warming adherents while you enjoy your favorite cold beverage.  

Al Gore and the Great Green Meltdown

Well, I'm glad to see that I'm the only one who's sick and tired of Al Gore and his self-righteously shrill, pseudo-cultic, fraudulent greenie crusade.  Its implosion will be a moment of Schadenfreudtastic glee, not to mention relief for serious people who resist the outright politicization and corruption of science for power and profit (including people like ... oh, I don't know ...  actual scientists).  

Energy Debate Rant and the "Addiction to Oil"

Hear, hear.  Part of the salvo:

You know what I can’t stand to hear about anymore? That we Americans are addicted to oil. It’s a smarmy term  that tries to couch an economic and environmental argument in pathological terms. ... It does nobody any good to try and debate economic and logistical necessities while using terminology to imply people who disagree with your view are mentally ill.

But what do I know?  I'm just another bitter stupid racist clinging to my guns and Bible who wants to push granny off a cliff and destroy the earth by emitting carbon with my Internet searches. Or something.  Hey, I'm just 'angin' onto outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society!

Every Time I Google For Recipes and Shoes, Global Warming Kills a Cute Baby Polar Bear

Yadda yadda yadda.  Is there any part of life that the Greenies will not seek to control in their horrendous eco-crusade?  Is there not a single activity of normal life that they do not feel justified in pontificating about, unasked and unwanted?  Killjoy thermomaniac watermelons!  In the name of their implacable pagan deity Gaia, amid lurid visions of greenpocalypse, these frothing fanatics will stop at nothing.  Prius-driving, soy-latte-sipping, humorless little popinjays!  Pathetic, hypocritical neo-hippies with delusions of messianic grandeur and fantasies of power justified by an aggressive sense of moral superiority. What a toxic crew of obsessive miscreants who trade in guilt and misery as the expression of their perverse secular doomsday cult.  GO AWAY.  I don't care if you want to flagellate yourselves over your eco-sins, but I sure as hell mind when you attempt to flagellate me.  Hey!  Can we classify Greenies as an invasive species?

In the meanwhile, I am busy Googling away -- Payless Shoes is having another BOGO sale right now, and MM needs some nice new sassy but cheap sandals for summer!  (Though that too is evil, apparently.)  I'm also doing this while drinking a big vat of non-fair trade, non-organic coffee and frying up some eggs from non-free-range chickens.  Evil!  How many sins can I commit before breakfast?  Heh!  Oh, and Google already put the beatdown on this stupid Internet-search idea back in 2009: "...a typical individual's Google use for an entire year would produce about the same amount of CO2 as just a single load of washing."  Speaking of, I gotta do laundry today -- rack up yet another eco-sin for me, yay!

Nerd Analysis: Professor Niall Ferguson on Why We're Currently Going to Hell In a Handbasket

Need I remind you, though, that "going" doesn't mean "have already arrived"?  Read this and this.

Quirky Euro Files: Attempting to Ban Cars in Cities

Good luck with that, pal.

Fiat Lux: the Aftermath of Earth Hour

I enjoyed my shiny heat balls, and some other folks were likewise having fun.  Check it all out after the fold:

It's Earth Hour ... Fiat Lux!

So while the treehugging Greenies are busy sitting in the dark -- hey, it's Earth Hour so you're supposed to be guilt-tripped into turning off your lights for an hour or whatever.  Forget that, man -- I got basketball games to watch and homework to do!  Besides, I love my light bulbs heat balls.  Check out some gorgeous video footage of some brilliantly illuminated cities -- centers of learning and culture, places where people live and work and have better, longer lives because of technological advancement and human achievement.  

Remember this?  Notice how the most miserable and poverty-stricken swathes of the planets are the ones that have no lights?  

Besides, do you really think that sitting in the dark for an hour is going to do anything substantive for the earth?  The very idea is laughable.  See this factoid from that piece:

When we switch off the electricity, many of us turn to candlelight. This seems natural and environmentally friendly, but unfortunately candles are almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs, and more than 300 times less efficient than fluorescent lights. Using one candle for each extinguished bulb cancels the CO2 reduction; two candles emit more CO2.

Earth Hour is really just an opportunity for more moral-pietastic posturing and self-congratulatory egotism on the part of the enviro-fanatics.  Let them sit in the dark.  The rest of us have better things to do!

Incandescent with Rage: The Lightbulb Revolt

Funny, but I still like the Heatball initiative better... But, seriously, dude, do I have to start hoarding lightbulbs?  Because I will if I have to.  I will.

Japan Says No to Extending Kyoto Treaty

I didn't bother blogging about the ludicrous Cancun greeniac convention because it's not worth my time.  I'm busy with school!  Besides, the last time the global greeniac elites met in Copenhagen, I slammed it as a convocation of fools and hypocrites, and I haven't changed my mind.  But this latest news is something interesting: Japan refuses to extend the Kyoto Treaty.  Here's a quote:

"Japan will not inscribe its target under the Kyoto protocol on any conditions or under any circumstances."

Well, well, well.  Bonus: the forthrightness of the Japanese announcement reportedly surprised the other delegates.  Anyway, check out the news video at the link above.  There are more quotables in it, including the statement of the truth -- that Kyoto is useless and stupid.  

Giving Beijing Residents the Cold Shoulder

Well, hey!  Temperatures have plummeted and Beijing's central government refuses to turn the heat on for millions of freezing Chinese, but the some greeniacs at CBS News thinks this isn't all bad:

There is one silver -- or green -- lining to weeks of goose bumps. Beijing's power plants burn through 41,000 tons of coal every day to keep the city's residents warm in winter. That energy is saved each day the government keeps the radiators turned off.

So ... it's OK if millions of people are miserably shivering?  Helplessly and needlessly?  What about the health risks to the elderly, the infirm, the sick, or the children?  Ugh!  It's inhumane.  Part of me thinks there is a certain breed of greeniac out there who dreams of the day when a green tyranny can do this sort of thing to everybody.  In the name of saving the earth, of course.  I'll tell you what, though.  Ain't nobody gonna tell me if and when I can turn on the heat or air conditioning in my own apartment for which I pay my own (increasingly expensive) electricity bill, dammit.

The New Hotness: "Heatballs" in Germany!

Do you remember this idiotic EU attempt to ban incandescent lightbulbs?  Now Dignified Rant and awesome Aussie Tim Blair report a supremely glorious act of legal, commercial, creative, humorous defiance by two enterprising Germans:

A German entrepreneur is bypassing a European Union ban on light bulbs of more than 60 watts by marketing his own brand as mini heaters.

Siegfried Rotthaeuser and his brother-in-law have come up with a legal way of importing and distributing 75 and 100 watt light bulbs – by producing them in China, importing them as “small heating devices” and selling them as “heatballs.” 

… On their website, the two engineers describe the heatballs as “action art” and as “resistance against legislation which is implemented without recourse to democratic and parliamentary processes.” 

Outstanding!  *MM blows a kiss and throws roses.*  

Blair also notes the free market at work:  "the first batch of 4,000 heatballs sold out in just three days, generating a toasty turnover of more than $9,500."  For the record, I only half-joked when the EU lightbulb ban went into effect that soon we would have "a thriving international black market in contraband lightbulbs."

Here is the official website of the Heatball, by the way:  http://heatball.de/   Take a look at their self-description:

Ein Heatball ist ein elektrischer Widerstand, der zum Heizen gedacht ist. Heatball ist Aktionskunst! Heatball ist Widerstand gegen Verordnungen, die jenseits aller demokratischen und parlamentarischen Abläufe in Kraft treten und Bürger entmündigen. Heatball ist auch ein Widerstand gegen die Unverhältnismäßigkeit von Maßnahmen zum Schutze unserer Umwelt. Wie kann man nur ernsthaft glauben, dass wir durch den Einsatz von Energiesparlampen das Weltklima retten und gleichzeitig zulassen, dass die Regenwälder über Jahrzehnte vergeblich auf ihren Schutz warten.

All the same, my favorite bit is this statement about the heatball: "Die beste Erfindung seit der Glühbirne!" -- "the best invention since the lightbulb!" Oh, I laughed out loud. Fantastic!

You First, Your Highness

Greeniac wealthy palace-dweller Prince Charles thinks Indian slums are a good model for sustainable "green" living.  Really?  You want me to give up my modern conveniences and technology and live in a shack made of scavenged rubbish -- all for the good of the planet?  YOU FIRST, PAL.  

"A Disastrous Own Goal for the Green Movement"

James Delingpole has this withering commentary on a bit of eco-agitprop that is flabbergastingly bad.  (Need a reminder of what an own goal is?)  Caveat: before you watch the video, be warned that it's bloody.  Then remember that this was supposed to be "funny."  What astoundingly poor taste.  

Still, in cases like this, freedom of expression becomes the rope that wild-eyed fever-brained idiot activists use to hang themselves with.  (Hey, green-freaks!  Thanks for letting the rest of us know what a bunch of certifiable kooks you are and discrediting yourselves ... thus saving us the trouble.)  To quote Delingpole's magnificent verbal venom:

It’s so deliciously, unspeakably, magnificently bleeding awful it makes you wish that the man [video director Richard Curtis] could be given a ticker tape parade in every major capital city, in gratitude for the devastating damage he has (unwittingly) wrought on the eco-fascist cause.

RELATED POST:  The politics of demonization.  So ... "You don't agree with me, so you must be (insult)" can so easily become "You don't agree with me, so you must be ... eliminated?"  Oh, for shame.  Even as a poor joke.  

Climate Change Skepticism and Elitism

Read this!  It's a thoughtful, intelligent essay of a type that is all too rare now.

Quirky Euro Files: Quick, Hoard Lightbulbs!

Actually, I don't blame these folks one bit. I hate the new, eco-blah-blah "morally superior" lightbulbs. Their light is just plain awful and gives me eyestrain and headache.  OK, next up:  a thriving international black market in contraband lightbulbs.  I'm only half-joking.