Dear W.A. – My children are urging me to lower our carbon footprint by reducing our use of electricity. They are being told at school that electricity is a bad invention, as it destroys the planet. We have already replaced our incandescent lightbulbs with ecobulbs, we make sure to switch off lights when we leave a room and to switch off computers and TVs when not in use. What more can I do? Signed: Switched-off
Dear Switched-off. Yes, the Warmaholics are telling the public that the two worst planet-damaging technological developments of the Industrial Revolution have been electricity and the internal combustion engine. The use of the demon electricity is already being curbed by Warmaholics actions such as Earth Hour. But they want you to do more than just switching off for only one hour per year.
There are about two billion people on this planet who do not have electricity. They want to do their utmost to prevent them from ever getting electricity.
But everybody on this planet should wean themselves off electricity. For instance, by not using electric washing machines, but going to a local river, lake or creek and do the laundry there, like our forebears did. The picture at the beginning of this blog is a copy of a 19th century painting of washer women by Jean-François Millet. It illustrates the point. Without electricity people can go to bed at sundown and get up at sunrise. The light of the sun is free (like wind) and harmless. What could be more satisfying then plowing the fields with plows pulled by oxen? Dentists should use pedal-powered drills, like they do in areas without electricity. There are so many things one could do.
Doing away with electricity will drastically reduce life expectancies and reduce the world population to manageable proportions. Average life expectancy in 1900 was about 30 years. It is now 67. It was probably less than 30 in the Middle Ages.
Such actions would herald the dawn of a bright future. But much more can be done, such as banning the fiendish internal combustion engine. Or ship's diesel engines (I love sailing). Air travel is an absolute no-no. Even bicycles should be banned, as their production emits lots of greenhouse gases. Walking or riding a horse is all one needs to get from point A to B. And don’t forget that one only should eat food that is produced within a circle of less than 100 km radius from one’s home.
But then again, you may decide to become acquainted with the science behind the man-made climate scare and realise that it is the biggest scam in human history. It will be an epiphany to realise what untold benefits the Industrial Revolution has brought to mankind. You then may want to bring those benefits to poor countries, realising that improved prosperity will also result in a reduction in population, as shown by wealthy countries.
