Earth Hour This Saturday: Why Candles Instead of Electricity?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 29, 2019

“Earth Hour not only coincides with Venezuela’s involuntary, chronic blackouts. It also joins this week’s complete, abject defeat of the Green New Deal. The 0 – 57 drubbing–with not a single Democrat voting “yes”–signals that self-made electricity blackouts will not be tolerated in the US.”

The joke goes: “What did the socialists use before candles.” The answer: electricity.

Such is true today in Venezuela, which is likely to encounter this Saturday’s Earth Hour (a turn-off-the-lights protest against modern living [1]) with an involuntary period of darkness. Atlas is shrugging under the Maduro regime, with electricity experts having fled to freer countries (a classic “brain drain”).

Venezuela is fiction-to-fact with Ayn Rand’s epic novel, Atlas Shrugged. But Rand in a previous book set up a fictional account of the fate of electricity in a dystopian world–what Earth Hour seems to long to bring about.

Here is the Cliff Notes excerpt from Rand’s Anthem:

In his experiments, Equality 7-2521 discovers electricity. He uses it, after much effort, to create an electric light. He thinks that this light can be used to light the cities of the world. He wishes to show it to others, but knows that they will not understand and be frightened. In a month, the World Council of Scholars meets in his city. He knows what to do. The wisest minds among humankind will be there. They are the only ones who can understand his gift. He will wait and show it to them, and they will know how best to employ it for the good of society. And he will be welcomed among them as one of the Scholars.

But when he demonstrates his invention, they are frightened. They call him an “evil wretch” for daring to think that a lowly Street Sweeper can possess greater wisdom than that of the Council. He has broken all the laws, and must be severely punished. Equality 7-2521 acknowledges that they are right and does not care what happens to him. But the light, he pleads. What will you do with the light? They point out that he is alone in believing that he has invented a great new product — and that what is not believed by all cannot be true. They point out that if he is right, then his discovery will bring ruin to the Department of Candles and confusion to the Plans of the World Council. For it took 50 years to get approval for the candle from all the Councils, and to change the Plans again so soon would be impossible. Their conclusion is unanimous: The light is an evil thing and must be destroyed.

Interestingly, Earth Hour not only coincides with Venezuela’s involuntary, chronic blackouts. It also joins this week’s complete, abject defeat of the Green New Deal. The 0 – 57 drubbing–with not a single Democrat voting “yes”–signals that self-made electricity blackouts will not be tolerated in the US.

The road to freedom shines brightly today in America.

———————–

[1] States the World Wildlife Fund: “Starting as a symbolic lights out event in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour is now the world’s largest grassroots movement for the environment, inspiring millions of people to take action for our planet and nature…. As accelerating climate change and staggering biodiversity loss threaten our planet, Earth Hour 2018-2020 endeavours to spark never-before-had conversations on the loss of nature and the urgent need to protect it.”