They Call This Higher Education?

Civilized debate appears to be an endangered species.

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An Hour of Self Delusion

Earth Hour. When IKEA and the WWF sit in the dark, pretending it means something.

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Indonesian Official Compares WWF to Thieves

The behaviour of green NGOs in the developing word resembles foreign adventurism: arrogant, reckless, and exploitative.

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Earth Hour, Smog & Kim Jong Il

For Earth Hour’s eco-campaigners, barbaric oppression in North Korea is merely a talking point, something to casually make use of.

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Manufacturing Earth Hour

Canadian students are so jazzed about Earth Hour they need to be bribed to do volunteer work.

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Earth Hour Organizers Prey on Mexico

Mexico is crippled by corruption, violence, and poverty. But the World Wildlife Fund wants it to show leadership on climate change.

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Earth Hour: Corporations Preaching Morality

When you dim your lights for Earth Hour, you’re protesting in a manner approved by multinational corporations. You’re allowing banks and insurance companies to tell you how to spend your Saturday night.

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The Wealthy Corporations Behind Earth Hour

Earth Hour was brought into this world by corporations. Fairfax Media Limited – whose newspapers, magazines, and radio stations are supposed to report impartially on environmental issues – owns one-third of this annual green event.

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Earth Hour? I'll Take a 'No Nagging' Hour

As a young woman I embraced feminism because I had no desire to be bossed around by men. These days it’s greens who want to regulate my behaviour.

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Earth Hour 2010

Tomorrow's the day we're all supposed to turn off our lights for an hour. The Earth Hour campaign is organized by the World Wildlife Fund. While the point of the exercise is apparently to "take a stand against climate change" it might be argued that Earth Hour is a wildly successful fundraising tool in which the WWF receives oodles of free publicity from media outlets, politicians, celebrities - even Google.

The high profile nature of Earth Hour is surely one of the reasons the WWF is now the world's wealthiest environmental organization. According to publicly-available figures compiled by Climate-Resistance.org, the World Wildlife Fund raised $3.1 billion in just six years (2003-2008). That's half a billion dollars annually.

The hype and silliness associated with Earth Hour 2009 was what finally pushed me, personally, over the edge. It was then I decided to begin researching the global warming debate in earnest. Too many things didn't seem to add up. Too much of what I was reading and hearing seemed to be mindless hype reported by people who had no real idea of what they were talking about.

This year I'll be joining those folks who are deliberately turning on all their lights during Earth Hour - to demonstrate that I am aware of Climategate and consider it an important matter.

Fellow Canadian Ross McKitrick teaches economics at the University of Guelph. After being questioned by a journalist regarding Earth Hour he has written up a short statement in PDF format explaining why he "abhors" this campaign. Two of my favourite quotes:

I don't want to go back to nature. Haiti just went back to nature. For humans, living in "Nature" meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance.

...through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s despite the expansion of industry and the power supply. If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children...then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations. No thanks. I like visiting nature but I don't want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization is something to be ashamed of.

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See also, Canadian newspaper columnist Lorrie Goldstein's views here

>> Independent bloggers vs corporate environmentalists
>> Green time capsule: 1970s eco ideas weren't pretty
>> Global disaster is so 1976
>> That's it, I've had it

That's It, I've Had It

Earth Hour 2009 finally pushed me over the edge. Anyone who hasn't been living in a cave knows about global warming and how we should all do our part to avert impending disaster.

I've been skeptical of the hype for some time, but life is short and until now I've felt I had other battles to attend.

But matters have gotten out of hand. Earth Hour started out as an entirely voluntary, highly symbolic expression of environmental concern. In astonishingly short order, however, it has morphed into something approaching a civic duty.

My hydro bill arrived two days after Earth Hour. But printed below my "daily usage" graph is the following:

Participate in Earth Hour by turning off all your lights on March 28 between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. To learn more, visit www.earthhourcanada.org/

That web address belongs to the World Wildlife Fund. The WWF describes itself as "one of the country's leading conservation organizations, enjoying the active support of more than 150,000 Canadians."

33 million people live in Canada. The WWF is, let's admit it, merely one among hundreds of groups devoted to good causes. So why is my public utility - the Toronto Hydro Electric System - promoting the activities of this particular lobby group?

The most recent issue of NOW, a free Toronto entertainment weekly, has a full-page ad inside its front cover promoting a free Earth Hour music concert. The ad was paid for, apparently, by the WWF and the City of Toronto. "Switch off & sign up at EarthHourCanada.org" it reads.

Given the enormous media coverage, why would additional government funds be spent on the promotion of such activities? The Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper, didn't write an article or two, it published an Earth Hour section.

At the top of the online version there's an ad for, you guessed it, the WWF. The page contains prominent links to dozens of stories published by The Star during the weeks leading up to Earth Hour. Then there's an additional 17 articles by columnists and guest writers ranging from Margaret Atwood (novelist) to Robert Bateman (painter) to Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel laureate).

The headlines on these articles leave no room for doubt or debate. They refer to the "moral aspect of climate change," the "apocalypse" of urban sprawl, and warn that we have mere hours to "prevent climate disaster."

One guest essay, titled "On a Leap of Faith," bears this as its subtitle:

If we stop flying and shipping, take bicycles to work and slash electricity use, would we sidestep the predicted environmental catastrophe? We don't know...But it would be immoral not to try.

I'm very sorry, but all of this amounts to hysteria. It really is time that sensible people started speaking up and pushing back.

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