OPINION

The Meaninglessness Of "Earth Hour"

Written by Richard Marcus
Published March 29, 2008
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Now that might sound "ecological" until you start factoring in something else, how much of our agricultural land is now being used to grow what used to be know as feed corn - corn unfit for human consumption but you could feed cattle with - that can be processed for manufacturing purposes? In order to make that box your chicken product came in we've wasted land that could have been used to grow food instead of creating packaging that has to be disposed of.

Then there's the matter of how that packaging was manufactured. How much fresh water was used for the paper to be pulped, for the inks to be manufactured? How much electrical power was needed to for the various stages of the manufacturing process from the cutting down of the tree that supplied the wood that made the paper until the box ended up on the factory floor where the frozen chicken bits were stuffed into it? What happened to all the waste product from the manufacturing process all the way along the chain?

None of that even takes into account the chicken that was used in the process to make the contents of the package. Skipping over the whole ethical thing about factory farms for now let's just consider chicken shit. That's the real problem with all these factory farms is the disposal of the animal waste product. You get thousands of chickens in one place you're talking about one hell of a lot of chicken shit that you have to get rid of somehow because you can't just have it piling up on the floor. So where does it all go?

All of that just from buying one box of frozen chicken breasts at the supermarket. If you were to take every product you purchase in the grocery store that came pre-packaged and start tracing back through the manufacturing process for each part of it, you'd come up with a similar scenario. Even those so called "green" products we all buy are packaged and contribute somewhere along the way to the damage we're inflicting upon the planet.

So things like Earth Hour and Earth Day are meaningless jokes when compared to the damage we inflict upon the world we live just by going about our daily business. No one-off event once a year will change that. Sure turn your electric power off for an hour tonight if you want, but while your at it why not sit down and look at the real impact of your personal habits on the planet earth.

Oh and everybody, don't rush to turn on your electricity all at once; the power spike could black out North America for hours.

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Copy02-11-Richard portrait-72-4x4.jpgRichard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at Leap In The Dark and Epic India Magazine.
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The Meaninglessness Of "Earth Hour"
Published: March 29, 2008
Type: Opinion
Section: Sci/Tech
Filed Under: Culture: Business and Economics, Culture: Society, Politics: Energy and Environment, Sci/Tech: Energy/Environment
Writer: Richard Marcus
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Comments

#1 — March 29, 2008 @ 15:18PM — Dan

If you are going to knock an event that is trying to raise awarness towards one of the few serious issues that effects ALL of us please get your facts straight.

It's really pathetic how you slam the WORLD WILDLIFE FUND and don't even get the organizations name correct.

Then you say they co-opted the idea from Sydney. It was WWF who created and staged EH in Sydney.

Next you say only 230,000 people signed up and only 24 country's are participating this year. Wow are you off. There are nearly 400 cities around the world turning off their lights. 35 of them are officially working with the WWF.

It's bloggers like you that give blogs a bad name. You are entitled to your opinion but at least be intelligent about it.

Fix your blog or get off the net, there is no place for people like you on here.

#2 — March 29, 2008 @ 16:01PM — Pierre-Luc Marchand [URL]

I understand your concerns about this event, but it is certainly not meaningless as you argue it. It is not because it shows that, together, we can achieve something good. Closing lights isn't what will save us, but it will certainly help raising awareness amongst people all over the world, especially amongst those willing to take the necessary steps to turn-off the lights. You see, when someone turns-off the lights for an hour, he certainly understands that it's not that hard to help environment. Of course, as you said it, we must not acknowledge that the Earth Hour is all we have to do once a year to help the environment; this would be plain wrong. But this is not what the even is about; the event is about raising awareness over the world.

Your says make no sense, and are even ironical in the sense that your point is that we should not raise awareness on Global Warming and all that matter because people will think that we have have done the necessary steps. The problem is, what should we do? Not raise awareness?

You sound like the Honorable James David Manning who criticized Barack Obama because by electing a black president, people would think that the Blacks cause would not be an important matter anymore. You should think about it once more.

#3 — March 29, 2008 @ 19:00PM — Doug Hunter

What in the hell is wrong with envirowhacko leftists that make them so miserable? It's always about how the world is going to end, and eating = death, and breathing is pollution, kids are bad, blah, blah, blah.

This phenomenon only seems to exist inside lazy overwealthy western countries. Perhaps we have become too safe and healthy. We have nothing in reality to worry about so have have to coneptualize future potential hazards and worry about those.

The sad thing about these people is they are extremely motivated to convert others into their misery. They seek bureacratic positions where they can force their views on others, they propagandize constantly on the internet and in person. It's a sickness really.

#4 — March 29, 2008 @ 19:11PM — Jordan Richardson [URL]

The real sickness is the notion that the American ideas of "left vs. right" are transferable to other countries in the world. The reason you don't hear about other countries having this "phenomenon" is that "other countries" typically don't degrade the notion of taking care of the environment to partisan politics and empty mythology.

Since when is deciding to take care of the environment a political issue or a "right or left" issue?

#5 — March 29, 2008 @ 19:15PM — Akiva

This is only the bigening.

#6 — March 30, 2008 @ 00:24AM — T [URL]

And your solution is....? Liberals always denigrate, scoff, and sneer but never offer their own solutions except tax everybody who makes money.

#7 — March 30, 2008 @ 12:04PM — Doug Hunter

T,

Their solution is exactly that. The very natural feelings and fears about the environment that every human has are being manipulated to serve a left wing agenda.

The left has always believed govenment should exercise great control over industry and hence capital. The answer to these so called environment catastrophes is...you guessed it... to put government controls over industry and additional power in the it's hands. A marriage made in heaven.

There is no conspiracy, noted UN insider (from Canada even) and environmental activist Maurice Strong stated his disdain for capitalist western systems:

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring about?"

Incidentally, to save the planet he has long pushed for measures to regulate, limit, and license the right to have children for others(he himself has 5). He long ago left Canadian politics for the UN becuase he prefers unrestricted power that comes from not being held hostage to an electorate.

This is the typical hypocricy of the leaders at the heart of the green-left movement. They are fabulously wealthy but they want to destroy the system that allows others to become wealthy. They want to restrict travel and children and energy, yet they want expansive estates and private jets andd 5 kids of their own. They are the heart of the movement, our writer here is just an ignorant foot soldier passing on the base propaganda to others.

Jordan,

First of all, 'left-right' is a concept derived from the seating arrangements in the French legislatures as far back as the 1700's. Secondly, an idea can be applied to anything regardless of whether the target understand it as such. People outside the US may not consider themselves on the left-rigth spectrum but it is possible for me to evaluate them based on the principles embodied in their politics.

Thirdly, and you know this already but I'll do the obligatory rebuttal, eveyone cares about having and clean, healthy, and safe environment. That isn't partisan, what is partisan is the fearmongering defeatists and their self righteous preaching of the coming environmental apocolypse.

On a side note, I love my country. I love how frustrated the rest of the world gets when we don't buy every doom and gloom prediction put out by the UN. How irritated they are that we don't bend down before unelected world bureacrats like they do. We're born skeptics and it has served us well.

#8 — March 31, 2008 @ 17:25PM — Marcia L. Neil

Perhaps a mass die-off of other species was expected, with a follow-up mass barbecue.

#9 — April 3, 2008 @ 16:10PM — Dan

It's amazing how ignorant all of you are. Wake up! The proof of climate change is everywhere. Other countries ARE talking about climate change and ARE doing things about it. The US is too caught up in themselves to know their head from their asses. You spout about Leftists and right leaning folks the bottom line is it doesn't matter what your idiological beliefs are, climate change is non-partisan. What needs to happen for you all to realize we have a problem?

#10 — April 12, 2008 @ 12:01PM — Brian aka Guppusmaximus

What needs to happen for you all to realize we have a problem?

You know what?? If people are so concerned with "Global Warming" and the damage that is being done to the planet, then I have a solution...

Give up your Car/Truck/SUV!! Just get rid of 'em.
I know, that can't possibly happen because then we would have to discuss the real reason why this planet is going down the sh!tter. That reason is Breeding!

We have mass awareness of AIDS & poverty in Africa but yet those people continue to have children.
We have mass awareness of the poverty stricken here in the US, but those people still continue to breed. Hell, if an immigrant gives birth to a child in this country they automatically become a citizen. They weren't brought here because they don't have hospitals in their respective countries.
[Do I have to explain why??]
It's not always the responsibility of the government to impose these changes...

We all want our supposed "legacy" to live on but no one here would make the ultimate sacrifice for the planet!

#11 — April 21, 2008 @ 10:54AM — Amanda

Earth Day is on April 22nd. Thank you.

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