Sunday, March 30, 2008

Earth Hour shines a light on... right-wing moronitude


Whether last night's Earth Hour saved a pile of energy or not, it was successful -- it was a strategy that raised awareness of the climate change issue better than the holy grail of media time, a spot in the Superbowl, could ever hope to do. Earth Hour was interactive marketing at its finest: whether one participated or not (and apparently millions did -- Ontario's power usage was down by 3-5% -- make that 5.2% -- during that hour), Earth Hour was thought about, talked about, written about, argued about, wondered and worried about, blogged and bullshitted about -- whether it was disparaged or celebrated wasn't the point. Buzz was the point, and Mission Accomplished. There's more awareness of the climate change issue today than there was 24 hours ago.

On a vastly tinier scale, there's also more awareness of The Stupid that oozes from the deranged right-wing jerkoffosphere like pus from a festering sore. Earth Hour was called a lot of things by its detractors -- a commie conspiracy, groupthink, fascism (does that guy even know what "fascism" is?) etc. etc. blah blah blah yack yack yackety yack -- but by far the most ludicrous response was the wankosphere's lame-o attempt to try and offset some of whatever good the initiative might do. As CC noted, an adult who wasn't into Earth Hour would probably just say "No thanks, I think I'll pass", but adulthood is easy: you gotta fight for your right to be a dumbfuck. In doing so, the citizens of Lower Wingnuttia not only helped raise awareness of Earth Hour, but shone a halogen-bright light on their own stupidity.

Imagine if you will, a moderate, non-partisan individual googling "Earth Hour" to find out what all the fuss was about, and stumbling upon The Angry Villagers with their goofy exhortations to fire up all the appliances and lights, let vehicles idle for an hour and maybe put off that welding job until 8pm. It's one thing to say Earth Hour was a symbolic gesture tantamount to nothing, quite another to go out of your way to try to saboutage it (as if that would even be possible). It's like some bozo keying a Prius because they think the owner's an "enviro-weenie".

It's good to keep an eye on these cretins and occasionally point out their absurdity. But sometimes they do the job so well themselves that there's nothing left to do but stand back and avoid the splatter from their intellectual wet farts.