Quote of the Day: Tim Blair on Earth Hour and Green Technology

As a chaser to Earth Hour and Human Achievement Hour, read this interview with awesome Aussie blogger Tim Blair. Here's a great little quote about "green technology" (my emphasis in bold italics):

Interviewer: And a more general question. Regardless of the truth or otherwise of anthropogenic global warming, do you support an eventual move to a non-carbon based economy and if so, under what terms?

Tim: I’d support it under the same terms that gave us a carbon economy: if it offered a material improvement over existing conditions. Give me a non-carbon jet that can take me to England this summer faster than some old Airbus, and I’m on board. Build a non-carbon car that is quicker, cooler and equally affordable as a GTHO and can carry as many people, and you’ll have buyers lined up around the block.

An important fact that anti-carbon folk usually forget: the carbon economy didn’t come about because of government support or widespread protests about horse manure and air pollution caused by burning wood. It came about because it was an improvement.

The market rewards improvement. That’s why people ditched horses for cars and wood for electricity. A fortune awaits anyone who can come up with something better than an internal combustion engine or air conditioning driven by something other than electricity.

These breakthroughs are unlikely to come about because we turn our lights off for an hour every March.

Yes. (Add also nice snidely humorous potshot at the end, there.)

Turn the R&D geeks and nerds loose in a free-market economy!