Earth Hour Saboteurs!

We are still recovering from the excesses of Human Achievement Hour that coincidentally took place at the same time as Earth Hour last Saturday night.

Still groggy from doing burnouts in our Hummer, killing whales, clubbing baby seals AND leaving the lights on, we were alerted by several emails and phone calls that our blog's exploits made the MSM.

In order to make the first page of the Sunday Star Times you apparently need to be caught urinating outside the North Shore City council chambers, so we had to make do with page two.

Under the dramatic headline "Earth Hour Saboteurs Switch On" it was breathlessly reported that:

"A group of eco-saboteurs has staged an assault on Earth Hour, flicking on all their lights in a tongue-in-cheek bid to derail the country's great power switch-off."

Cool! Makes us sound very windswept, edgy and radical.

The article continues:

"While thousands across the country turned off their lights for an hour last night as part of a worldwide effort to counter global warming, a small group was busy running round switching all their lights on for their own "Human Achievement Hour."

"Human Achievement Hour was founded last year by the United States free market think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute as a reaction to Earth Hour. The "movement" has now spread to New Zealand, where it is being promoted on blog sites, and Australia."

Sounds great! We are now part of a movement!

"We will not be joining hippies, enviro-activists and other associated loonies around the world that will sit naked in the darkness in order to highlight the confused ideals of man-made global warming" Kiwi supporters of the Human Achievement Hour said on the Motella blogsite last week.

Instead, we will celebrate Human Achievement by turning ON as many lights as we can.

We salute the people who keep the lights on and produce the energy that helps make human achievement possible."

 The article goes on to provide a bit of generic cut and paste background on Earth Hour:

"Last year 51% of all New Zealanders switched off their lights for Earth Hour, resulting in electricity savings of up to 10% in some cities and an overall power saving of 3.5% off normal power usage.

This year the lights on Kiwi landmarks suck as the Sky Tower, the Beehive and Christchurch Cathedral  were again switched off from Earth hour as local authorities and businesses pledged their support.

The result of last night's efforts were not known before going to print.

Today it is apparent that Earth Hour has failed to capture the imagination of Kiwis. Central and local government sleepwalked to a perceived obligatory decision to participate. A few businesses used the event for a cheap publicity stunt, while the majority of Kiwi households simply ignored the call to sit in darkness. It has been reported that estimated that total savings of electricity this year was less than 2%.

Meanwhile we note that the Sunday Star Times contacted and reported one "enlightened" motelier" in the same article:

"Gisborne motelier Stewart Haynes was among those kiwis shunning the concept of Earth Hour by switching on as many lights as he could.

He is skeptical about global warming and believes that switching off lights for one hour does "no good whatsoever" and that the Earth Hour concept is misguided.

"People certainly do harvest some eco-guilt and there are some people who believe that if they take part in (Earth Hour) then that scrubs their obligation and they can carry on".

"It's very much a feel-good  type of thing" said Haynes.

"We'll certainly take every effort to turn on as many lights as we possibly can and sit back and see who is not doing so and poke fun at them."

Inspiring stuff;-)