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CITY OF LIGHT
Earth Hour rejected:
Tamworth Regional Council appears unlikely to initiate a major public awareness campaign in the lead-up to Earth Hour 2008 on Saturday, March 29.
And with good reason. Electric light is part of Tamworth’s progressive heritage:
In Tamworth a group of progressive alderman led by a man called William Joseph Smith formed the Electric Lighting Committee in 1886. Smith was inspired by the possibilities of this new creation and even went to England to further his knowledge. They decided that electric lighting could be provided to a greater area and at less cost than the current gas lighting.
At a grand “Switch On” ceremony on the 9th of November 1888, 17 kilometres of Tamworth streets were electrically lit making it the first town in the Southern Hemisphere to acquire municipally supplied electricity, sixteen years ahead of Sydney.
Nearly 120 years on, the grand “Switch On” is replaced by Earth Day’s grim switch off:
I hope that the initiative can be expanded until one day the people of big cities such as Sydney and Melbourne can once again enjoy the light of the heavens on many days each year, unobscured by a wasteful blaze fuelled by a black, polluting rock.
If they wanted to enjoy the light of the heavens they’d probably live elsewhere other than Melbourne or Sydney. It isn’t difficult in Australia to find a place unobscured by “wasteful blazes”.
I have an idea that might actually be interesting.
You Aussies have lots and lots of “out back” that ain’t got even a lick of modern humanizing in it.
Why doesn’t some enterprising soul acquire a chunk of that land and start up a true, hard core naturalist reservation?
The program could center around giving those who are into drinking the Luddite koolaide to have a place where they can go and wander around and live, for a time (and a fee) as true neolithics did.
No modern stuffs allowed. Not even clothing. They pay up for how ever long a stay they require, and then strip down and run off into the wild.
They can live at a true subhuman level to their hearts’ content and not have to worry about running into anyone who might make them jealous by their comfy modern amenities.
#2 Grimmy; they won’t because they’re hypocrites; the disconnect in a greenie’s mind is that HE/SHE will still be able to enjoy all the benefits of our great Western societies while similtaneously preaching for its demise.
Anyway, I’m sick of earth day; what about a Mars day, or a Venus day, and noone ever mentions poor lttle Mercury?Oh, Grimmy’s got the right idea.
1st, buy the 1,000 acres in the middle of nowhere. A nice fat fence around it to ‘keep civilization from encroaching on this bastion of environmental responsibility.
2nd, Advertise! ‘Greenway Ranch welcomes you! Come and celebrate Mother Earth in a pollution-free, earth-friendly environment that nurtures your own desire to really know what being a child of the earth is! Learn techniques for using sustainable resources. Experience first-hand how to do without the onerous trappings of modern life. Remember - it’s always a Happy Day at Greenway!”
3rd, Collect US$1000 in advance for each week they’d like to stay.
4th, strip them of cell phones, shoes and other modern conveniences. Dump them down and leave. So they learn and experience everything the hard way, but they will learn and experience!
5th, charge them US$1,000 per day to be picked up early.
Dang, we’re on to something! There’s GOLD in that there Greenway Ranch!
Posted by Persnickety on 2008 03 20 at 05:19 PM • permalink#2 Grimmy: ‘They can live at a true subhuman level to their hearts’ content and not have to worry about running into anyone who might make them jealous by their comfy modern amenities’.
We have the polar opposite of this now, Grimmy, and it’s called Canberra. It’s full of state-funded moonbats who are paid well to think of all other Australians as subhuman. I don’t mean the pollies who have to leave it sometimes, but all the lefty bureaucrats.
They not have to worry about running into anyone who might make them jealous OF their comfy modern amenities’.
Typical lefty, typical child: “I want it. Give it to me!” The absolute conviction that what they want should be mandatory. “It should be illegal for cars to park on my street”, “The whole country should say sorry, and pay money, when I feel guilty about being white.” etc.
“I want to Look at stars - the 4.3 million other people in Sydney shot be made to sit in the dark.”
If they want to see stars, then I remember some low-technology methods in the old Warner Brothers cartoons.
Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 03 20 at 05:40 PM • permalinkBy the way, congrats to Mark Latham who is the only non-American politician to appear on Cracked.com’s list of certifiably insane politicians people still voted for.
Posted by Quentin George on 2008 03 20 at 05:42 PM • permalinkRe my previous post:
”...people in Sydney shot be made to sit in the dark."
A typo on my part, yet I think in their heart of hearts that executions for Gaia would be acceptable to this crew.
Mistake but accurate.
Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 03 20 at 05:44 PM • permalinkI once spent the night in a swag near Uluru. Never saw stars like it - that’s a real purty sky you Aussies have down there. You could turn all the lights in Sydney, Melbourne, Alice Springs and everywhere else up to 11 and I don’t see that view being affected one little bit.
But don’t get me started on how hard it is to get a decent latte out there. And as for the wi-fi coverage - oh, the humanity! Yes, much better to stay in Sydney and make everyone else quit hogging the sky with their vulgar streetlights and whatnot.
Posted by Don Charleone on 2008 03 20 at 06:25 PM • permalinkWe got a memo about this at work two weeks ago lauding the ‘success’ of last years Earth hour and asking for suggestions about how we could join in and do our bit to help save the planet this year.
Last I heard of it, so I guess no-one’s excited, but I’m thinking of leaving the lights on in my empty office over the weekend to highlight my solidarity.
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2008 03 20 at 07:27 PM • permalinkI’m thinking that the 9th of November should be be declared “Switched On Day”, a national holiday in Australia commemorating the introduction of electricity.
It can be celebrated by shutting down schools, banks, and government, with free beer (chilled in ‘fridges, naturally), and a parade of lights held between 8PM and 9 PM, or whenever the sun sets down under in November.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 20 at 07:36 PM • permalink#9 Quentin, Cracked obviously haven’t heard about Bjelke Peterson or, for that matter, 99% of his cabinet (99% because the sum of them was less than the parts;); who can forget Russ Hinze on the hustings, turning away from a critical gathering and passing wind, and he had an arse as wide as Latham is tall.
I hope that the initiative can be expanded until one day the people of big cities such as Sydney and Melbourne can once again enjoy the light of the heavens on many days each year, unobscured by a wasteful blaze fuelled by a black, polluting rock.
So, it’s bad that Bagdhad’s lights go out, but it’s bad that Sydney’s lights stay on?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 03 20 at 08:41 PM • permalinkWhat I find most intellectually convoluted about the climate change/ reduce CO2 boondoggle is that each economic model relies upon increased costs (taxation) to reduce consumption.
This has an immediate and drastic effect upon the poor folk, who are to be protected at whatever cost (i.e. subsidies), on Socialist/Fascist first principles.
Now, if the poor folk get subsidies, then the desired usage reduction will be significantly curtailed, won’t it? I mean, they will still be watching their 50” plasmas all day (on the Harvey Norman no repayments until 2011 scheme), and using just as much power as before.
This is not going to end well, and the only ray of hope is the results of the Brisbane City Council elections, where Campbell Newman (an idiot, but an opinionated, forceful idiot) was re-elected under the Liberal Party banner.
Maybe we need strong leadership in the conservative parties on a State and Federal basis, rather than the weak-kneed, “me too” style of puppetry practiced by Brendon Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull.
Just for once, a strong, forceful leader who has the guts to say “This Global Warming crap is just utter bullshit, and has to stop. Now!”.
Shit, I’d even vote for Russ Hinze if he could form an effective opposition. Pity he’s dead.
Otherwise, we are just replacing the Stalinist five year plans with forty-five year plans, ferchrissakes!
I first suspected that the human race might not make it when CO2 was declared and then seriously treated as ‘pollution’ by a significant, and growing, part of humanity.
But please, please do not lump me into that group because I, and many of my fellow amateur astronomers, stand for reducing light pollution. Not by turning lights off, but by other responsible methods. (Don’t get me started.)
Drop the ‘greeny’ light pollution shtick.
#20 Kaboom; Russ hid his graft in his arse, so “don’t you worry about that”; vote for his grand-daughter instead; she hides her assets else-where.
Very intersting history lesson there, Mr. Blair. Are you and these townsfolk saying The Simpsons episode from 1995 was inaccurate? It showed a commemorative stamp on the letter from ‘Hopping Mad Collection Agency’ celebrating ‘30 Years of Electricity.’ Was that… was that wrong?
#20- Newman’s a fervent eco-warrior (worrier) anyway, and certainly has done nothing about scrapping the green idiocies of his forbear Jim Sorebum; I don’t know how much of it’s poll driven and how much is actually believed, but he certainly pitched it during the campaign; I despair at the total absense of any true conservatives in Australian politics, a bland collection of middle-of-the-road social democrats with a tax ans spend obsession- but who the fuck is character-challenged enough to enter politics and then proceed to do themselves out of a job?
#2 Grimmy, that actually does go on, although not quite to the extreme that you describe. All up and down the NSW north coast are hippy communes full of people who want to get away from modern society. The largest concentration of them is up near the Queensland border around Byron Bay and Nimbin.
It was a movement that really boomed in the 1970’s, but many of the communes are still alive and well.
On the times I’ve encountered them, I’ve found these rural hippys to be friendly, easy-going types, although they tend to have some really wacky ideas and smoke too much dope. Those last two things may be related.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 21 at 03:58 AM • permalink
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How long before “light pollution” will be declared a “menace” by the Gaia-worshippers and the “switch-off” will become a nightly occurance? They must want the whole world to be total darkness at night in a view from space. Like North Korea...
Except they really don’t. They’re just indulging in another pointless exercize in nihilism.