Posted on 04/22/2023 6:01:46 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Saturday will mark the 53rd anniversary of Earth Day, one full spin of the globe in which we are expected to celebrate the modern environmental movement. Yet that great cause, if we may paraphrase Eric Hoffer, became a business, then degenerated into a racket that not only became a haven for grifters but also a platform for scolds and eco-religion zealots. We strongly suggest that rather than spend a day exalting the inanimate Gaia, the West should mark it with recognition of how far human progress has brought us.
Closely related to Earth Day is Earth Hour, usually the last Saturday in March each year when the lights of “landmarks and homes across the world” are to be turned off from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm local time.
The usual scolds expect us “to spend 60 minutes doing something – anything – positive for our planet.” In other words, plunge the world back into pre-modern times. This might be productive if the point were to show how far man has come – and how far he will go backward if the green zealots get their way. Instead, it’s an opportunity to virtue signal and hector.
Economist Mark J. Perry has long suggested that we use Earth Day – which has become an airing of progressive grievances, which can be addressed only through leftist public policy – to “appreciate our fossil fuel energy treasures that come from the Earth’s natural environment.”
After all, Earth is where we’ve found the raw materials we needed to protect ourselves from the hostile environment around us and to pull ourselves out of poverty. It’s as if they had been stored there for us to use. Without energy provided by fossil fuels, man would not have advanced far beyond where he was just before the Industrial Revolution.
Let’s remember this by leaving the lights on and taking advantage of the blessings of the internal-combustion engine, an invention that has liberated man like no other.
Unlike solar and wind, which the green narrative insists will replace fossil fuels and make the world a better place, hydrocarbons are cheap and reliable. Also unlike solar and wind, they are here now, powering economies across the world. (Those two intermittent forms of energy produced a mere 10% of global electricity in 2021. When hydropower is added, it appears as if renewables make a much larger contribution, but we can’t count on that power in the future because the political left hates dams and would rather they be taken down.)
At the same time we should also remember this: While the fawning-over-anything-green media will credit the environmental movement for the improvements we’ve seen since that first Earth Day, the truth is, as we wrote in an editorial at Investor’s Business Daily in 2009 that is no longer available online:
“The world, especially in developed nations, is a cleaner — and greener — place than it was when the environmental movement began,” because “through wealth generated by the free market, we have enough resources to move beyond the subsistence economies that damage the environment, enough disposable income to fund clean-up programs, enough wealth to scrub and polish industry.”...
I only have 386 miles on mine. Still in the breakin period so redline is reduced by about 2000 RPM.
I am on a waiting list for one of the new Z06 models with the flat plane V-8.
I think you’ll like that too!
These are keeper cars don’t let go of them
LOL
I have three motorcycles that i start, one at a time, to warm them up and enjoy the sound.
Then I have two generators, start each one and let it run t warm up the oil.
Then I have a power washer
two lawn mowers
A third lawn mower that is devoid of a mower deck, used to pull the tiller with it's own motor
A second self propelled tiller
Then the two weed eaters, a two and a four stroke.
The tractor, of course,
And two toyota 4 runner suv's.
Makes one hell of a busy morning celebrating the ICE.
I will burn a tire for Greta.
She puts the “mental” in environmental.
To celebrate Earth Day I usually burn an old tire or two.
Driving uphill to the range to do a little black powder shooting.
It sounds like you are doing a great job in your celebration of the ICE!
Little road trip this afternoon.
Go burn some petroleum distillate.
The applications are limitless, and the amount of work accomplished relative to the amount of time freed up to pursue happiness!
Light off a black powder round for me!
Gonna take a drive in my Infiniti QX80 to celebrate and charcoal grill steaks later.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.