Earth Day/Earth Hour Pro and Con

Some want us to turn out our lights and turn off our electricity. Some want lights on and electricity in use. Mr. Don Boudreaux says in “What Earth Day Means to Me:”

I’m thankful for the automobile, which has cleaned our streets and highways of animal feces, which is both foul and filthy itself, and that attracts flies that spread it into our homes and workplaces. … I’m thankful for electronic appliances, such as those that (along with modern detergents – for which I’m also thankful) allow us to clean our used clothing and dirty dishes. … I’m thankful for electricity for making these appliances possible – and for enabling us to light our home without dirty candles, and for enabling us to heat our homes without coal, wood, peat, or other filthy substances. … I’m thankful for chemical fertilizers that increase the productivity of the earth’s soil, and thereby helps to prevent malnutrition — which, in turn, better enables each of our bodies to succeed at fighting off diseases that are more likely to sicken, or even kill, malnourished persons.

What would it be like if “Earth Hour” becomes “Earth Week,” “Earth Month” or “Earth Year?” No lights, no electricity, for a week, a month, or a year. How has it been for those of you who have been in regions struck by hurricanes? What is life like with no electricity for two days, a week, or a month? And that’s even with the benefit of some power — other people in the US still have it, so you get to benefit from that eventually and indirectly. What if no one in the US had electric power for a week or a month? Without oil and gas, how would we power ambulances, trucks that bring groceries to market (there are too many people where I live to be fed by “local farms”…who would still need trucks to get product to person), fire trucks, school busses, etc.? Where do we get the electricity to charge cell phones (which we use for business, to talk to loved ones, to talk to friends and family, to call for help in emergencies), to power hospitals, to power movie theatres and home TVs, to power our stoves, ovens and microwave ovens? And where would we get the electricity factories need to turn out clothes, toys, food, and medicine? Where would we get the power without oil and gas? We pretty much cannot build dams because they mess with the environment. We pretty much cannot build nuclear power plants because of scare tactics, restrictions, and regulations. People call for solar power or wind power — but where would that be put? If we are not supposed to “despoil” the land, we won’t be able to build them anywhere. What do the restrictions on oil and gas do but put us between a rock and a hard place? We need rational thought, and the freedom to reason, if we are to get a viable answer. We need a society, business world, and government that are required to leave us free to think, that can ask us to believe something, but cannot coerce us to believe  — i.e., we need the principle of individual, inalienable, natural rights; we need the doctrine of man as a self-sovereign being.