The Sydney Morning Herald has launched a campaign called Earth Hour, encouraging businesses and residents in Sydney to turn off their lights for one hour between 7:30 and 8:30 pm on Saturday 31 March.
This has provoked a response from The New City, the website run by three epigones of leading greenhouse denialist and former Federal Labor Minister Peter Walsh which I have previously described as Labor’s New Right Fifth Column online. Walshie’s Warriors are calling on Sydney residents to
LET THERE BE LIGHT! PROTEST GREEN HYSTERIA. SWITCH ON THE LIGHTS AT 7:30PM ON 31 MARCH.
The irony of three self-appointed impresarios of true Labor values using the term “Switch on the lights” as a political slogan will not be lost on those of us with adolescent or childhood memories of Federal elections during the 1970s.
Walshie’s Warriors also have big ideas for the New South Wales North Coast.
Nor for those of us who have adolescent memories of Joh BP’s election night declaration in 86 – “I have good news for Queensland – the lights will stay on for the next three years” after he’d smashed the electricity unions in the SEQEB strike.
The slogan in question, used by the Liberals in the Kerr-induced election of ‘75, was “Turn on the Lights”.
The song was sung by Renee Geyer, who took the Liberals’ coin in that most passionate and fevered of elections . Some have never forgiven her.
They really do let any sort of morons join Labor in NSW don’t they…..
join or run?
The Earth Hour campaign is a typically tokenistic and silly exercise and totally counter-productive.
The energy spike which will occur when everyone switches back on their lights might possibly use more energy than if they’d just left them on. The fact that sitting in the dark for an hour might incline people not to turn off their lights in future and the inevitable reaction such as described above to actually turn on all the lights thereby counter-acting whatever energy is saved.
If you want to help those slamming the environmental cause as a pack of political Romantics big on utopian ideals, starving of common sense and pretty much worse than useless, this is the way to do it.
I’ve always found Peter Walsh to be one of the saner members of the ALP though of course Chris Anderson will consider that further evidence.
But you’re right, one idiot protest does not counter another idiot protest, unless it draws attention to the first idiot protest.
Turning off the lights for an hour is an idiot protest. Is there consensus here on that?
Dude, retune your irony meter, circa 1940s. Chifley and Curtin’s ‘Light on the Hill’ is about to be switched off. Walshie’s Warriors are on to something.
What, precisely, are they on to? Labor should cave into developers everywhere and run the economy purely on the mining boom?
I suppose it’s too much to ask that you’d have a quick look at the site and see if it has any substance before sneering at it?
Their November editorial, “Don’t sacrifice workers on altar of climate change”, makes some points that seem quite good to me.
David, I think if you follow Paul’s link, you’ll find he’s had more than a quick look at the site in the past.
I tried Mark, the link is broken.
But the use of the term ‘fifth column’ doesn’t give me much hope.
Here’s the link, David. It’s quite a long post. I’ll fix the link in the post above as well.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/05/22/labors-new-right-fifth-column-online/
These guys are pro-union and still get a roasting for not making sufficient obesiance to the New Animism.
Thank goodness there is still some sense in the Labor party and they have not made someone silly enough to be an ex-Communist the arbiter of who should and shouldn’t be in the party.
Well, I’ve just had a look at Paul’s article from last year – thanks Mark for posting the link.
Paul’s article has the same sneering tone as this one. It talks about The New City’s ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’, and their ‘obsessions’.
Other choice quotes include:
I found several articles at TNC that claimed that the ALP’s rank and file membership is indeed unrepresentative, but I couldn’t find one that uses the Keating quote ‘unrepresentative swill’.
The final paragraph of that article says:
Perhaps a slightly more analytical approach to this site might be in order. Some things that might be useful to know are:
1) How many people do in fact share their prejudices?
2) Does anything they say ring true or have any relevance?
3) What would be the best counter-arguments, capable of convincing many people, to use when their ideas are mistaken?
Paul’s articles would, I think, convince no-one who had not already made up their minds and, in my opinion, show many of the same mistakes of the people who attacked Mark in the recent thread about his review of Lucy and Mickler’s The War On Democracy. http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/15/the-war-on-the-punditariat/
However, I will admit, concede and agree to all attacks on TNC’s appalling web design. Oh, and guys, it’s called RSS. It’s quite common in new cities.
James Hamilton – it’s not a protest. It’s a strange conclusion that this awareness raising exercise is in some way meant to be subversive or contrary to the established order. The point of this thing is to create an occasion where attention is graphically turned to our prodigious energy consumption.
It’s std operating procedure for community education campaigns – see Clean up Austraia Day etc
I thought you libertarians’d be happy. There will be no legislation that you must turn off your light next week at 19:30.
wbb, read Adrien’s comment. This is pointless paying of penance which achieves nothing except to make some smug bastards feel even better about what great souls they are. Environmentalism really is the religious hysteria.
You’ve been hanging around Rafe too much, Jason!
David, I’ll let Paul speak for himself. I did review one of these gentleman’s books on Labor some years ago, though, and the “pro working class” claims appear to be not too different from the Quadrant/culture warriors’ line that Labor sold its soul to middle class uni types – ie latte lefties. Though I think the author is himself a university educated lawyer. Aside from that sort of Paddy McGuiness sneer (and it really is a sneer), the line appears to be to support an economic policy indistinguishable from that of the most neo-liberal Liberals except when it comes to unions. Oh, and like I said, giving the whole joint away to developers and corporations.
The more I think about this silly campaign the more I wonder at the stupidity of it. wbb calls it a ‘awareness raising exercise’ – umm, how about reading a book or studying your electricity bills and trying to make a dent in it because umm, it’s actually in your interest to do so?
Oh I forgot, most of sheeple who will follow this are too innumerate and illiterate to do such things. Instead they’ll sit in the dark for one hour, ruminating over their sins and then simply displace what they were going to do later in the night and use the same amount of electricity plus inducing the spike Adrien referred to which adds more to that.
Idiots.
Well, they appear to have used the ‘latte’ word only 2 times, so that’s an eye-roll from me but not a complete write-off. Although I just don’t get what they have against milky coffee…
Yes, their site is pretty prejudiced as well, but I suspect they are appealing to the prejudice of a majority, which is more likely to be successful in winning majorities and arguements than what I see as Paul’s appeal to the prejudices of a minority.
Well that’s something you could actually use to build a mass message. Do you mean a ‘let ‘er rip’ attitude to market forces?
This strikes me as a reasonable point, I have to say. Empty gestures are remarkably like peeing in a dark suit – they feel good but don’t show. TNC doesn’t strike me as particularly neo-liberal, but rather seems representative of an alternative Labor tradition that is concerned with both costing its policies and avoiding pointless hysteria. My comment over at Catallaxy focussed on this point:
Let’s be honest here. Most of those older men who lost their jobs were pushed out by technological change.
In the future both mining and forestry (being very capital intensive) will come up with still more ways to cut/dig resources with fewer and fewer staff.
It can’t be too long before the number of lawyers in most mining companies will exceed the number of people under the ground.
You may wish to support the coal industry and there are very good reasons for doing so, but spare me the “But who will think of the Workers!” spin.
Instead of having this great ” demonstration” of concern, why don’t people simply switch over to green power for their power supply. All one has to do is call the energy company and switch over. That way you’ll get the windmills to turn over.
I’m sure Paul Norton could afford it.
Paul? Are you up to it?
Jason, as you should know perfectly well, individual piety is not going to solve the problem of global warming. What will solve global warming is political action to put a price on carbon one way or the other, so that changing technology and behaviour such that less carbon is emitted becomes economically desirable. This will only happen (and thankfully is happening) when the public puts pressure on politicians to act – witness Howard’s increasingly elaborate contortions on the topic.
Then, if you’d deigned to watch that evil nasty taxpayer funded ABC, you may have noticed an interesting Four Corners story tonight. Like an earlier one done here, it pointed out that the fossil fuel industry has been taking the same attitude to climate science that the tobacco industry took to medical science. Thus, a significant fraction of the public still has an erroneous view that global warming is something that the scientists are still arguing about, when all they’re really arguing about are the details and the basics were settled a decade ago.
Thus, “awareness raising” is the single most important activity that can be conducted to help tackle climate change. Everything else is just fiddling at the margins.
Both sides of this remind me of an old story I remember hearing in Russian History lectures back at UQ in the early 1990s.
Apparently in the 19th century there was a movement of student radicals who could not understand why the peasants did not rise up and through off the yoke of Tsarism. So a movement developed for students to go out into the countryside and live as peasants so that they might understand what was going on and to raise awareness of the “revolutionary” cause.
Of course the cluey peasants welcomed the students, gave them the most hard labour possible and used them as workhorses that summer. And in between put up, barely, with their lectures on the workers revolution.
So the movement failed – there was no peasants rebellion, and all that was achieved was that agricultural output increased in some regions of Russia that summer….
And the point is what, Robert, that the CBC didn’t slant the piece?
Anyone bother to mention that the lead scientist on the IPCC on storm activity resigned over the fact that his area was being politicized when there is no evidence in climate scientist that storm activity has increased as a result of AGW.
Take a look.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
Most fascinating resignation letter I have ever read.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
.
The show criticized the Bush administration for playing with the facts in terms of where the country is with its GHG emissions. Of course it wasn’t mentioned that Kyoto is now a shambles of deceit and dishonesty. Carbon credits are now trading at cents in the dollar due to the fact that they are all raising the ceiling. Is this less honest that the US actions? Please.
Frnak Luntz’s comment at the very end of the show was about the most honest.
No one seems to be telling the truth.
The real cost is not being factored and the other side doesn’t want to recognize there may be something happening.
Joey,
You complete dolt. The “Science Policy Colarado” site you link to is that of none other than Prof Fred Singer- the stinking filthy Republican gun-for-hire who has testified that second-hand cigarette smoke doesn’t pose a health problem, the ozone layer isn’t thinning, mercury isn’t such a bad thing ….
JC, I’m a renter and my landlord makes the decision about where we get our power from. I do the ethical thing and cycle the 25 km round trip to and from work, but my idealistic aspirations are somewhat undermined by the consequent need to shower three times a day. In mitigation I will plead that if global warming is not averted Brisbane’s climate will make this problem even worse.
David, as I’ve explained and linked on numerous occasions, the available social survey data on public attitudes towards environmental issues indicates that concern about global warming is far and away a majority “prejudice” (including amongst the working class, and indeed amongst coal mining workers and their union – check out their web site) and the denialist nonsense of Walshie and his Warriors is a phonebox minority prejudice.
Jason – “silly enough to be an ex-communist”? Please explain. As for the rest of your splutter, it seems to bear out my suspicion that libertarianism is the characteristic prejudice of very clever but not very wise young men without spouses or children who have yet to resolve their existential angst about the fact that they were born from women’s wombs, that they were helplessly dependent on their mothers’ breasts ad subject to their mothers’ guidance during their earliest years, that they will one day age and die (and have to have their bums wiped for them in nursing homes in the final stages of their existence), and that they and their fellow rationally self-interested utility maximisers in their beloved market economy are still just animals in an ecosystem and when it dies back they will die back with it.
Interesting bit of feminist neo-Freudianism. And it’s true that we are animals hence dependent on the ecology to subsist. I am not an AGW denialist. I believe we have a problem that must be addressed.
but…
How does switching the lights off for an hour do this? Earth Day is a dumb idea.
Well, if TNC create a website that doesn’t make your eyes bleed, coal workers may well be attracted to this sort of sentiment, for example:
And there are other issues, some of which I mentioned above.
Another one is, for instance, the North Coast/Byron Bay issues. Why should locals be able to keep development out, so they can monopolise the area? I reckon you could sell that line in Western Sydney.
I put up a perfectly sound explanation of why this little stunt is a pointless measure which may even prove counterproductive (Robert Merkel certainly gets my message) and what does Paul Norton do?
Indulge in a little unfalsifiable Freudian mumbo jumbo about what I might think about my mother. Fits perfectly with this need to pay penance through Animistic ritual, really.
No, Paul I’m perfectly happy with the fact that we’re animals and Turing machines to boot. I would beat anyone on this forum hands down in my Sociobiology and neo-Darwinist sympathies. None of this, however, has implications for productive versus counterproductive means of adapting to climate change.
On the other hand, there are some people who want to be secular but really are psychologically incapable of being atheists. They just don’t have the fortitude for it and seek fulfilment in substitutes. Get thee to a church, Norton.
These guys are pro-union and still get a roasting for not making sufficient obesiance to the New Animism.
They get a roasting because they’re further right than the Right – look at their links, IPA, CIS, Bjorn Lomborg, Miranda D and the list goes on. Secondly, because they’re hypocrites – their central tenet is that Labor is hijacked by (cue horror movie music) tertiary-educated “knowledge workers” and professionals at the expense of the “routine worker”, but despite the awful web design, TNC is run and edited *exclusively* by… Professional, tertiary-educated white-collar knowledge workers! …Gah!
My nomination for the most pointlessly and pontificatingly pompous sentence of the week.
“Thank goodness there is still some sense in the Labor party and they have not made someone silly enough to be an ex-Communist the arbiter of who should and shouldn’t be in the party.”
It’s good to see that Jason thinks Communists should not abandon their politics.
Paul
I betcha feel good after all that cycling, must give you a superior feeling. But if you are right and the libertarians are wrong, they’ll drag you down with them. He He He. You’ll die in the same nursing home havin’ yer arse wiped too. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to try to convinve them to join you by using some already tested ideas (eg carbon taxes) than indulging in pointless feelgood exercises.
Robert Merkel: “when all they’re really arguing about are the details and the basics were settled a decade ago.”
Indeed… but the details are important. Many people skeptical of government action are concerned that the ‘conciousness raising’ is all about painting super-scary stories and raising fear to justify policies that may not be justifiable given the uncertainty about the details.
I really don’t get why some people are so bent out of shape by some symbolic mass action being campaigned for by the SMH. Jason for instance, for all his libertarian… er… ‘quirks’ is usually good humored and reasonable but this has driven him to call anyone who turns their lights off ‘innumerate and illiterate’, make uncharacteristic declarations about what the behaviour of all these’sheeple’ will be (that they’ll sit in the dark not doing anything) *and* what their motivation is (penance). It’s even unhinged his syntax to the point he’s suggested it would be preferable if people never left the Communist party.
It’s very odd.
d
“Get thee to a church, Norton.”
I’ll say.
Norton, you’ve got my goat over this silliness. I’ll counter you. On the same day at the same hour i’ll be turning on every single light and appliance in the house.
If I blow a fuse I’ll be sending you the tradie’s bill, but I very much doubt it will happen after seeing the fuse box I have.
Mel
Unless Chris Landsea has morphed into gorgeous Freddy Singer the letter of resignation still holds.
Now let me remind you this is a nice and pleasant site, so try and behave please.
“i’ll be turning on every single light and appliance in the house.”
Now that’s blind conviction. Someone willing to spend unnecessarily on a pointless, futile and unnoticed gesture.
As nabs sings to the tune ( with a slight adaption)
Am I lonely tonight.. lonely lonely tonight…….
You know the rest.
Just because you won the comment of the year award, Nabs, doesn’t mean you aren’t a lonely, vapid little guy with pretentions of grandueur.
What are you this week a private equity manager, Mr. blue blood?
Well this was ” a nice and pleasant site, so try and behave please” until you turned up poor old joe, lugging around dull blog feuds like battered jump start cables in the hope they’ll still recharge the batteries of a bitter empty life.
Be nice, boys.
I’ve had three glasses of a very good Shaw and Smith 2003 Merlot. I now feel very mellow. I won’t open another bottle lest I become cantankerous. Please follow my example!
Nabs
But you mistaken me. I’m the good guy remember? I actually tried to help you get a stay of execution from not getting booted off Catallaxy and becoming a persona non grata…. And what an ingrate you turned out to be. I certainly can’t pick my friends, hey?
Listen let’s stick to the thread, despite your drunken and lonely state.
Are you going to turn off your light (note lack of plural) on that fateful day when we’re going to save the world. Yes or no?
sorry Kimbo.
The black gravatar I tried to help bit my hand off.
But kicking and screaming I’ll try to be nice to Nabs. Always have by the way.
“I actually tried to help you get a stay of execution from not getting booted off Catallaxy and becoming a persona non grata”
No. I left of my own accord. This whole reality-based thing ain’t working for you much is it?
And interesting how poor old joe (and Birdy) regard “lonely” as the ultimate put down. Does give you an insight into what they seem to fear most.
“No. I left of my own accord.”
Yes you did too, Nabs. Cough splutter, cough. I can attest to that and will prove it by linking to that fateful day if anyone, anyone should ask.
Nabs never got booted at the Cat for being a jerkoff and trying Jason’s endless patience. No siree. That ain’t true.
See nabs. I’m on your side. You gettin booted is just bullshit, man. Just bullshit.
Now. Are you going to stick to the thread and tell us what exactly you’re going to do on bizarro Guy Fawkes night, nabs?
“will prove it by linking to that fateful day if anyone, anyone should ask.”
I ask. Go right ahead.
And what happened to “Listen let’s stick to the thread…”?
“I ask. Go right ahead.”
“And what happened to “Listen let’s stick to the thread…â€??”
Exactly. So answer the question I posed. I wanna do what you’re gunna do.
Is the light switch going down or staying up in the ward, nabs?
“Is the light switch going down or staying up in the ward, nabs?”
Neither. I’ll be out that night.
Your turn.
“I can attest to that and will prove it by linking to that fateful day if anyone, anyone should ask.”
I ask. Prove it.
And also you silly little old man, I don’t live in Sydney anyway. And neither do you so your “counter protest” will be even more futile than first thought.
Paying of penance? Smug bastards? What’s up Jason? Can you analyse for us what get’s you so het up about community events? The group really freaks you out doesn’t it?
“Is the light switch going down or staying up in the ward, nabs?�
Neither. I’ll be out that night.
How do you know you’re going to be in or out? It’s over a month away.
What sort of cop out excuse is that Mr. I never got booted, but “left of my own accord.�
———————————–
“No. I left of my own accord.�
Reminds me of those resignation letters when a person gets fired Nabs.
“He left of his own accord”
———————————-
You’re now truncating my comment, you lonely, drunken old soul.
This is what was said:
“No. I left of my own accord.� (Your comment)
Yes you did too, Nabs. Cough, splutter, and cough. I can attest to that and will prove it by linking to that fateful day if anyone, anyone should ask. (my comment)
What I said was that you weren’t booted (hiding the giggle) you left of your own accord (giggling hysterically now).
I’m on your side, remember?
I thought you were treated very shabbily ( cough, cough) seeing you added so , so much to the site.
Now, really let’s get back to the thread once again.
Let’s assume you’re not lying and that your calendar is very tight a month from now. Let’s be hypothetical here and you’re not going out. What would you do?
On or off.
“your calendar is very tight a month from now. ”
Oh, I know what I’m doing that night. A friend’s birthday party. Remember friends? Or parties? No, probably not.
“What would you do?”
The usual when I go out on a Saturday night in Melbourne (not Sydney). One living room light and the front door light on. Everything else else off.
“I can attest to that and will prove it by linking to that fateful day if anyone, anyone should ask.�
Still asking. No proof yet. You got nothing you silly little old man have you?
What’s with all the coughing and giggling, Joe? It’s off-putting.
Kicked out of the Palladium,
you think that I cared?
No Catallaxy stoushin’ here please!
And what with the constant accusations of ‘lonely” and “How do you know you’re going to be in or out? It’s over a month away.”, we’re certainly getting an unwitting insight into poor old joe’s busy social calender.
Look if you’re going to stoush about Catallaxy, can you please at least mention Bill Hutt and Popper? What if Rafe drops in?
yes Nabs, listen to kim.
So what happens? Are you going to flick that switch and stay in the dark for an hour or not? Hypothetically speaking of course, as you hardly ever seem to be in these days (cough, splutter cough).
On or off?
Sorry Kim. It’s just I can’t resist baiting silly old farts like poor old joe and obby. Kinda like the Simpsons scene where Bart holding a giant tomato looks down on Principal Skinner tying his shoelace.
Most. Boring. Stoush. Evah.
At least make it entertaining. Otherwise I’m off to sleep.
A more sincere Nabs:
“sorry Kim, but I can’t help myself being drunk and lonely most eves. I can never speak to the thread as I have this undying need to be recognized as person of talent , wealth and breading. I try to achieve this by attacking other commenters, which is why I “left” (booted from) the other site.
On or off nabs. Hypothetically speaking of course.
Just answer the question willya.
Ok. Time to play the Evil Willow card.
Bored now.
“I can attest to that and will prove it by linking to that fateful day if anyone, anyone should ask.�
Still asking. Still no proof or links yet.
But yes it’s true I’m a man of breading. Upper crust in fact. Often against the grain though. And not easily buttered up. But anyway a toast to good breading everyone.
“Just answer the question willya.”
I did.
“I can attest to that and will prove it by linking to that fateful day if anyone, anyone should ask.�
Still asking. Still no proof or links yet.
“Just answer the question willya.”
Ok, this is Paul’s thread, and I have no doubt he’s asleep. I’m sure he wouldn’t want this to continue, so I’m going to close it off over night. Get the hint! Get a room!