Human Achievement Hour: Can it Exist Peacefully with Earth Hour?

Back on March 28 of this year, Earth Hour expanded to its largest degree in its history with cities and other communities once again shutting off their lights to recognize how energy impacts our environment. And with that came a new batch of skeptics who, with tongue placed firmly in cheek, decided to take their vitriol of Earth Hour to a new level. While the idea might be tongue-in-cheek, the implementation of it was real and serious. These people decreed a Human Achievement Hour that would defy Earth Hour by celebrating our inventions via keeping our lights on or anything that takes energy. Whether these were big-business Republicans who still thumb their nose at the notion of global warming was never revealed. What was revealed is that Human Achievement Hour (or another tongue-in-cheek "HAH!" for short) has mostly Libertarian connections through this holiday's founder, The Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Whether that paints Libertarians as nefarious in their sense of freedom is up to you. On the surface, though, the idea of Human Achievement Hour isn't bad at all when so much has been forgotten of how much we really have achieved in technology. In a different context, a Human Achievement Week or Month would be a great American pastime as the equivalent to all our other monthly recognitions of history and other achievements. Of course, it'd have to be set widely apart from Earth Hour to avoid riots. Or maybe they could work together to send a more meaningful message with a lot of wattage.

The only drawback to Human Achievement Hour is that it was already run through the ringer by much of the press who support the meaning of Earth Hour. You even saw some press articles (see source link) saying that many major corporations supported Human Achievement Hour when they really didn't endorse the organization, per se. All they did is stay passive to either side and went ahead with business as usual. Many of the corporations who kept consuming electricity were supposedly prominent ones in Washington, D.C. such as The Smithsonian Institute and Kennedy Center. Others nationally were (unsurprisingly) Wal-Mart and Target. Even the U.S. Marine Corps decided to keep operating that night.

Consider that false advertising if you want--especially when it's hard to believe that the Smithsonian and Kennedy Center would give a giant finger to Earth Hour. There could be every indication they'll join Earth Hour eventually once it starts to catch on more diffusely. The counterargument, though, would be that they would already if they really wanted to. Keeping their base of operations going that night gives the indication that they support human progress and would be the most likely to support a Human Achievement Whatever.

It makes a valid argument plausible that such an idea could catch on with at least the Smithsonian Institute. After all, you could talk to most people and not find many who'd know even one name within the brilliant list of inventors who brought us where we are now. Even those inventors, however, knew when to turn the switch off after feeling the euphoria of making the world hum along to a more technological future.

That idea may be where HAH and EH could start in finding a way to work in tandem.
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Supporters of Earth Hour make the complaint that Human Achievement Hour just teaches wastefulness rather than what their title suggests. It's hard not to agree with that assessment when you picture people leaving their lights on too long when they don't have to or keep a TV running for endless hours when there isn't a soul watching or anything worth watching. We've all been guilty of that at some point in our lives if continuing to be at times. But we can't let Human Achievement Hour burn out like a lightbulb filament in the dead of night. When you have opposing sides that both bring up excellent points, joining heads is always the best solution, despite rarely being done, if ever.

I'm always proponing to bring two strongly opposing sides together to bring on a larger solution to a problem. Unfortunately those sides never do as noted, particularly in the Evolution vs. Creation debate where combining the two would lead to monumental solutions we'll otherwise likely never see in our lifetime. The same can be said of those who are skeptics of global warming with those who say it's as real as you and me. Assuming the proponents of Human Achievement Hour aren't completely fanatical in their belief that the Earth isn't warming up (human-caused or not), what would keep them from hooking up with the advocates of Earth Hour to create a one-night partnership?

Imagine the more powerful impact it would make to send a message of Human Achievement for one hour--and then celebrate the idea that human progress also needs breaks sometimes by shutting off our power an hour later. If we could bring all our greatest inventors back from their spinning graves, I suspect they'd all agree that there's a time to use their inventions and a time to give them a rest. Had they been in the know that the Earth was having major changes due to dangerous warming of our arctic climates, they would have gladly nodded to one hour of turning off our electricity right after we celebrate those inventor's achievements.

So here's a call for HAH and EH to link arms without getting too serious about ribbing those acronyms. Nobody says we can't celebrate progress without making us think a little more about them after they've been turned off for a short time.

Because critics say that neither one makes any difference in the wider picture of saving the planet, making us think deeper always matters in a much wider picture than we can readily absorb...

Source:

http://cei.org/news-release/2009/03/19/cei-announces-%E2%80%9Chuman-achievement-hour%E2%80%9D-coincide-%E2%80%9Cearth-hour%E2%80%9D