I abhor Earth Hour

[Richard Drake]

So said Canadian Economics Professor Ross McKitrick in 2009 when asked by a journalist for his thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour. I've just been reminded that it's coming up all over again tomorrow. Ross went on:

Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity. Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide s afe indoor lighting for reading. Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and t he promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water. Many of the world's poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases. Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that's how the west developed.

You can read the rest in PDF form here. It's a perspective you may not have heard put so clearly before. I beg forgiveness if you already have or you consider this unsolicited email spam. On the other hand, of you think this message is important, feel free to copy it on to your email contacts, is possible before 8:30 PM tomorrow. It's time people heard the other side.