Instead of Green Goofiness, Celebrate Human Achievement this Saturday

You may not be aware (if you have anything better to do than sit in your living room with the lights out), but Albuquerque is one of hundreds of cities that has signed up to “celebrate” earth hour this Saturday night. According to the Earth Hour website, the idea is to turn off the lights for one hour at 8:30pm. The goal is to “take action” against global warming.
This is one of the silliest ideas ever. Why stop with lights? How about turning off the heat, refrigerators, and not driving? Will the City turn off street lights and traffic lights? Will hospitals turn off their lights and machines? The fact is that electricity and energy usage in general makes our lives better and turning out the lights for an hour every year isn’t going to change that.
Thankfully, I’m not the only one pointing this out. In fact, our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute have created “Human Achievement Hour” to be celebrated at the same time during which we are encouraged to “salute the people who keep the lights on and produce the energy that helps make human achievement possible.”
So, if you’d rather sit in the dark this Saturday, no one will stop you, but I’ll be either out with friends enjoying the fruits of capitalism or I’ll be watching the NCAA Tournament on my High Definition television.