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Last weekend was “Earth Hour” for 2011. I participated, to the extent that a negative can be participation, i.e. I turned off all of the lights in my apartment and spent an hour eating dinner and then reading (I decided that a couple of candles were “okay”).

I had mixed feelings about the concept, though, even beforehand. And when I read some exasperated criticism at Good, this week, I had to pretty much agree with the main points, and conclude that maybe I would just opt out if I had the weekend over again.

I still don’t know, though; one of the big problems with the “Earth Hour” concept is that it seems to create the perfect unwinnable situation from the perspective of environmentalism. Like “National Opt-Out Day,” it seems to demand a very unlikely mass turnout, and non-participation would seem to send the message that “oh, apparently no one else is worrying about the environment either; I guess I don’t need to.”

On the other hand, unlike “National Opt-Out Day” even significant participation in “Earth Hour” would, short of absolutely overwhelming numbers, also be a potential defeat. Because a “turn off your lights for an hour” event seems to send a really, really poor message, contrary to what environmentalism struggles so hard to prove. (more…)

Busy. Lots of work, leaving for a trip to Europe a week from Friday, stuff to do. So naturally I’m going to post a bunch of links here.

So you can experience “a day on the world wide web with Matt.”

Okay, this first one I actually read yesterday, and it was posted last week, but “Lessons of the Montreal Protocol for Climate Policy” is still interesting. The thing is, I’m not entirely sure what the point of this list is. It mostly seems to be things which advocates of environmental protections were aware of, and would certainly like to act on, but don’t seem to have a clear path to doing so. e.g., “It is important that the science not be politicized.” Great, how? Arguably, this list seems like it would be of more benefit to industrialists who want to block environmental activism, and could use this as a step-by-step guide. (Assuming that said industrialists elect to disregard the second item on the list, which is probably safe to assume.)

Lot of stuff from NPR.org and The Economist, of course, since those are major sources for me. I’ve almost wanted to avoid NPR out of embarrassment at their farcical self-directed inquisition following that latest idiotic “sting;” would that they applied such aggression to other subjects. But for all that, the site has been producing a lot of good material of late.

For example, this morning the politics blog posted an informative update on the battle over congressional redistricting. (more…)

You know what I think would be fascinating?

Well, among other things, right now I think that an interview with Barack Obama, in which somehow he could be completely honest, would be completely fascinating.

I must admit that, while I’m generally far more interested in the policies than in the personalities, I’m awfully curious about what that guy must think, at this point.

Various observers, including the Sports Curmudgeon, gave the president some ribbing for “taking the chalk” with his March Madness brackets. And while looking to his basketball picks for any sort of deep meaning is the silliest kind of pop-psychology, after two years Obama does seem to be taking a similar cautious, “work with the establishment rather than against it” approach to pretty much everything else, as well. (more…)