My Personal Experience Fighting the Worship of Earth Hour

Earth Hour is a global event organized by World Wide Fund for Nature, and asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and appliances one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Covered in the media and supported by the UN, it was said that turning off your lights during this hour would be a 'vote' in favor of the agenda laid out by the UN's Climate Change Conference.

Personally, I voted in favor of advancement of human prosperity by using energy to cook my food, celebrating technological progress of our society by watching TV while playing a video game on my computer, and was proud to have all my lights on, shining away in the darkness of the world. Thank you Competitive Enterprise Institute for suggesting this Human Achievement Hour. I wasn't the only one that celebrated Earth Hour this way- apparently the great prophet of global warming himself, Al Gore, didn't turn off his lights- see this post for yet another example of the hypocrisy of the left.

But this post isn't really about Earth Hour- it's more about personally how Earth Hour affected me. I'm going to share with you a personal story of my life the past week, when I made the choice to stand up to the Green Thugs who worship the Green God here at my school- please pass this story on, because it is a good example of what is to come in our nation.

It all started last week with an innocent email that was sent out by an administrator, telling our entire staff all about Earth Hour and encouraging people to "support the fight against global warming by turning off your lights for one hour tomorrow night- together , we can create change in our world and bring peace to all."

Don't be surprised- staff get emails like this all time- even here, in a rural community that votes strongly Republican, a public school financed by taxpayer dollars uses its technology to send frequent emails from superiors encouraging staff to support the fight against man-made evil global warming. As I was working on preparing my lessons for the next day, I received this 'important' email from my boss, and honestly, a look of annoyance flashed across my face.

In a fit of frustration, I replied to this email- pecking out a reply between hours- and sent it to the whole staff. I felt that if it was okay to get emails about Earth Hour, it was okay to respond to these emails- and I did. I sent the following message "As you can see from the attached graphs, there is no correlation between keeping your lights on and the Earth warming. But, because you asked, I'll turn off some lights to lower my energy bill."

One graph showed a correlation between the heat coming off the sun and the rise in temperatures, and the other showed the cyclical rise and fall of global temperatures. I don't think it was unfair or wrong of me to send out that email- I have data supporting my point, and the tone of the email was light and friendly. After sending the email, I was a bit apprehensive, but I honestly expected some light-hearted replies to it- but what I got in reply stunned me.

Our staff isn't a far-left staff- our teachers are not outright communists- and most people would call our staff 'balanced' or 'moderate.' But question the religion of global warming, question the beliefs of liberals, and be prepared for a firestorm- now I know. My inbox was instantly filled with emails blasting me, stunning me with their viciousness and vileness.

Other teachers and administrators sent me emails that said that my arguments were "sad defeatist" arguments, that I was giving up on the world and was unwilling to fight to make the world a better place. I was called "unintelligent," "uneducated," "immature," "backward," and "crazy." Like most liberals do, rather than debate my ideas and thoughts and data, they went straight for name-calling.

Even worse, many began to question my teaching ability. For the record, my students have the highest scores in the district on our common assessments and high-stakes tests, and I have frequently been recognized by students, other teachers, and administrators for being an outstanding teacher. But question the global warming religion once, and I get emails saying such things as "I am concerned that you could be convincing our students of the same fallacies" and "I seriously question what you are teaching our students."

Even today, days later, I am still getting emails ripping into me. Perhaps it is because I have been replying to these attacks on my character and teaching ability- other teachers in the building have encouraged me to roll over and just take the blows- they suggest I just hide in my classroom like they do. They also criticize me- they said I brought it on myself when when U opened my mouth in the first place and that in the future I should just just say "Heil" along with the rest of the staff. But I refuse to- because that's not what our founding fathers did- they fought when threatened- fought with their ideas- and I aim to do the same. I aim to be bad- I am to misbehave.

The most frequent argument that has been advanced to me by those who follow the Green Religion (the earth is warming, the warming is bad, the warming is caused by man, that government must control man, and that man must sacrifice to government) is that there is a consensus on the issue- that "most of today's highly educated scientists agree with global warming," and that my ideas "are like saying that the Earth is flat."

My reply to this was to question the proposition that most scientists feel this way- there are plenty who don't buy into some or all of the global warming litany. Further, I pointed out that the system now financially encourages scientists to espouse at least some of the global warming agenda- that there is now money subsidizing scientists who promote this, and no money for those who oppose it, so to rely on 'numbers' alone is not a good measure of the quality of the argument.

The reply for those on the left, those green worshippers, has been to mock me and call me more names. My arguments to them are childish. One email claims that "I suppose next you are going to tell me that the government was responsible for hurricane Katrina and 911?"- as if me not believing that turning my lights off will save the globe is the same thing as other crackpot theories.

Look- I don't put up with disrespect- I don't in my classroom, I don't from fellow teachers. So I told them to quit calling me names and quit disrespecting my views- liberals claim to be open-minded, they claim to be accepting, they claim to be morally superior. The reply- "I'm not calling you sad, stupid, ignorant, or unintelligent- I'm calling your views that." I am what I believe- are liberals not the same? Or are liberals something other than their views? I pondered these questions, sitting at my desk, typing out emails defending myself and my position, for some time.

Eventually, I just begin to hit delete. Logic, reasoning, and calm calculations, supported by data and clear thinking, had run up against religion. Global Warming (or climate change) is a religion, not a policy position. It's too bad that this religion is allowed to flourish in schools, that education can have study classes on the tenets of global warming, that we erect alters to worship global warming (a 'green garden' was built at our school last year), and that there are places to sacrifice to the green gods all over schools (the recycling symbol is omnipresent, as our recycling boxes and bins). It's too bad that schools are against religions such as Christianity and Judaism, as public schools continue their war on "he who can not be named in schools" (God).

Perhaps what was most upsetting to me about this incident was the reaction I got from my wife when I told her all this stuff. Excited about fighting the good battle, energized from my attempts to reason, I told my wife what I had done. Her face got pale, and she became fearful and scared- she was frightened that in this world, this new country of change, that I would be fired for believing the wrong things, for having the wrong views on global warming. My wife was scared that schools have become so much like a 3rd world dictatorship that saying the wrong view could mean the loss of my job. And the scary thing, she is right.

By taking this stand, by sending out one little email questioning global warming, by defending myself from insults and questions as to my ability, I have put myself personally in danger of being fired. I may now be let go from my job for questioning global warming. That is scary. Things are changing in this world, hope is dimming, and life is not fair anymore- and my small attempt to fight back at this, to push the darkness back by lighting the light of logic and reasoning on Earth Hour, may very well be the end of me as a teacher.