I've often said that the number one problem confronting policy-makers today, not just in Canada but throughout the Western world, is the general, and in my opinion cataclysmic, degradation in the quality of thinking that goes into the positions they take on issues and the policies that are derived therefrom. A prime example of this alarming trend is “Earth Hour” and the practices identified with this event.
For those who don't know, Earth Hour 2009 will occur at 8:30 pm local time on the evening of Saturday March 28th. Its intent – to draw attention to the state of the environment and to highlight what human beings can do to minimize their impact – is noble enough. The problem is that the public, as a sign of their commitment to sound environmental stewardship, is being asked to turn their lights off at that time, and leave them off for one hour. This makes no sense.
To begin with, although turning off the lights will reduce the amount of electricity consumed during that one hour, overall consumption will hardly go down. The conclusion that it will assumes that people will just sit quietly in the dark for an hour on a Saturday night doing nothing. I suspect, however, that most won't.
How many families will turn off all of its lights, then gather around the big-screen TV to watch a movie together in the dark, in contrast to the family that leaves a few lights on, but plays a board game at the kitchen table instead of watching television? Probably more than a few.
Worse, how many families will “prove” their commitment to a healthy environment by using candles as a “natural” substitute for electric lights? Only a small percentage of participants have to do this before the modest gains derived by turning their lights off are completely nullified.
“Not to worry,” Earth Hour defenders argue. “The true value of the Earth Hour initiative is not in the energy it saves, it's in the lesson that it teaches.”
But what is that lesson? That electrical consumption is bad for the environment? Or technology generally? That's just pseudo-scientific poppycock.
Consider first what the simple electric light bulb replaced – gas and oil lamps and candles, and before them, torches and camp fires. The level and toxicity of the pollutants produced by these old light sources, including so-called greenhouse gases, far exceeds those emitted in the production of the electricity needed to power all of the electric lights that replaced them. The invention of the electric light bulb also eliminated the health and safety risks that accompanied the use of these open flame sources of light.
And then there are all the other benefits of modern technology made possible through the harnessing of electrical power – benefits too numerous to enumerate. Far from being harmful, the discovery of electricity, the invention of the electric light bulb, and virtually everything that has come after that in the field of electronics, have been good for the environment.
That's not to say that each of these advances in technology haven't come with their own unique set of problems – they have – but it is to say that the problems they solved, including many that we may never have become aware of without the new technology, were much worse. Indeed, our very ability to understand and monitor the impact of our activity on the environment through the measurement and collection of data, and our capacity to develop new and better ways of mitigating that impact through computer modeling and control, are dependent on electricity.
So this year, when Earth Hour arrives, rather than turning my lights off, I and other thinking people will be turning them on in recognition and celebration of the immense contribution that electricity has made to the protection of our environment, a contribution symbolized by the simple electric light bulb.