Never Walked In High Heels

Conservatives are supposed to conserve. That’s what the name implies. The idea that we can create something (like energy) and have little-to-nothing left over is a great idea. Moreover, it’s a fantastic challenge to men’s minds, the type of problem which made us create the light bulb in the first place. It is the battle such as men literally fighting against the darkness which has called on the great mind of men to become even greater. And with new sources of energy came quite literally new ways of thinking.

The problem for me is when people demand either energy perfection or utter darkness. Last month, the UK decided to have a ‘blackout hour’ where everyone turned off everything to “vote earth.” The notion of it enraged me, probably more than I should have let it. I think it’s the idea that we solve our problems by going backwards and literally sitting in the dark ages which I find disturbing. When did we ever solve our problems by sitting in darkness and turning away from the issue rather than facing it full on?

Actions such as willfully stopping your life one night to “save the planet” is like crediting an apple for coming up with the laws of gravity. Isaac Newton did all the work years before that apple even came down. Had Newton not tinkered about in the lab, obsessed on his problem, revised, edited, and thought again, that apple would have been nothing more than a headache. Laboratories cannot make a better lightbulb while sitting in the darkness, they need to see what they are doing.

But Athena, you say, I’m not a lab. Can’t I do my part to save the earth by not using any energy at all?

Um, no, actually, it doesn’t work that way. 

See, how many hours of energy and pollution are you willing to give up to save the planet? If you can do that much good by giving up an hour than why not do an hour a week, or five hours per day? How many of your working hours are you willing to give up before you cease to exist? Stopping your life, regardless of whether you’re a judge or a janitor, is not going to make the world a better place. Shrinking and darkening your world is not going to make the earth any more fair. And a vote against the extraordinary tools produced by men’s minds is never a vote for the planet. It is a step toward destruction, and it is robbing us of your gifts and talents.  

Show me a better light bulb and I’ll buy it. Give me a carbon neutral cab that I can get into and I’ll hail it. But these things are not going to just appear while we’re sitting in the dark worrying about what damage we are doing to the environment. Keep using, keep going… keep thinking, even if it means keeping the lights on to read at night.