Tilting at Windmills
January 30, 2009
Las Vegas is famous for absurdity, but this year we are taking it to an entirely new level.
Normally a discussion about global warming would be completely out of place in an article about Las Vegas, but this year, Las Vegas is injecting itself into the hysteria.
On March 28th, 2009 at 8:30pm … Las Vegas will observe something called “Earth Hour”.
What is “Earth Hour?”
It’s an abject display of complete and utter human stupidity. It’s an hour that makes me wish I were a chimpanzee so that I would not have to acknowledge being a member of the inferior human species.
During Earth Hour, Las Vegas and all of the casinos along The Strip will dim all “non-essential” lights.
Why?
To save the planet.
Seriously.
I am not making this up.
Unfortunately, they have not defined “essential” and “non-essential” lights. If you hit a jackpot, will the lights indicating your win become “essential”? We don’t know. Are video poker machines “essential”? Again, we don’t know. Just to be safe, I probably wouldn’t do any electronic gaming during this hour. You may hit a Royal Flush, and then have the machine go dark as the casino explains to you that your payout is invalid in order to save the planet.
Now, I have said this before and I will make the point again. The Earth cannot be “saved”. The notion that we can, is a complete fairytale.
Life on Earth is a massive pyramid scheme, and someone is going to be left holding the bag in the end.
At some point in the future, the sun will lose all of its energy. Will it happen tomorrow? Will it happen in 200 million years? Nobody knows.
One thing is certain, though. When it does happen, the Earth will be flash-frozen, all life will immediately cease to exist and … lacking a central star to revolve around … our planet will be propelled randomly into space, where it will spend the rest of eternity as an extra-large ice cube.
There is not now, nor will there ever be anything the human species can do to prevent this.
Since this is the case, exactly what are we trying to “save”?
If the bar is closing at 2am, you might as well finish your beer, right? If 2am rolls around, and you still have half a bottle left, then you just wasted half a beer.
This is the way I see the Earth.
If we don’t use it up, whatever resources we have left will be wasted when the sun flames out.
Do you want to waste the Earth? What kind of heartless monster wants to waste the precious resources of our planet?
Certainly not me. That would just be plain ungrateful.
We should use all of the oil and trees we can before time runs out.
Now, will a future generation perish if we over-consume?
Of course.
However, a future generation will also perish even if we conserve.
Does it make a big difference if that generation is our great great grandchildren or our great great great great great great grandchildren?
I submit that it makes no difference at all.
Given all of this, it would be an understatement to say that I do not participate in the “global warming” hysteria.
Is global warming real? Is it a myth?
It doesn’t matter!
When the sun loses power as it nears the end of its useful life, some scientists have formed the hypothesis that we may actually need global warming to balance the waning energy from the sun.
We actually may be expediting our own extinction by preserving the ozone layer. It’s something to think about.
Anyway, Las Vegas is not the only town pretending to give a damn about mother nature. Along with dozens of international cities … Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville and San Francisco will also be participating in this little exercise of mental masturbation.
Even though these cities are geographically remote from one another, they do share one common thing with Las Vegas: Their leaders are complete and utter idiots.
As a matter of fact, Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid was quoted as saying “I’m encouraging all our casinos and 2 million residents to dim their lights in support of Earth Hour… to be part of the solution”.
Solution to what? He didn’t bother saying. Much like “hope” and “change” … “solution” just sounds like a really swell word. It doesn’t mean a damn thing, but logic is irrelevant and perception is everything.
So what exactly is Las Vegas going to look like without lights?
I will find out in two months, but here is my rendition of what I expect to see on March 28th:
Lights Dimmed on The Strip for Earth Hour
All Lights Off on The Strip for Earth Hour
While we are having fun with pictures … what is going to happen if we do not dim our lights for an hour in March?
Luckily for you, I have illustrated that scenario for you as well:
Heating Things Up in Las Vegas
And what is going to happen when, despite our best efforts, the sun loses the majority of its solar power?
Well, hell, let’s go ahead and cover all of our bases. This is exactly what Las Vegas will look like moments after the sun implodes:
Chilling in Las Vegas
As you can clearly see by these completely accurate and 100% scientific renderings, Las Vegas is pretty much screwed regardless of what happens.
So what can we do?
I say just keep using what we need until it is gone. I also think that we, as citizens and tourists of Las Vegas, have a sacred duty to balance out this “Earth Hour”. This will basically entail making up for the lost power that Vegas will be “saving”.
On March 28th at exactly 8:30pm, I’m calling on everyone to do the following:
- Turn on every light switch in your hotel room.
- Turn on every television, and turn the volume up as loud as it will go.
- Plug the hair dryer into the wall, turn it on, and let it run.
- Charge every electronic device you own.
- Eat at the Imperial Palace buffet, go down to The Strip, and let loose with the largest ozone-killing, methane-saturated flatulence that your intestines can muster.
- Enter the parking garage, start your car, put it in neutral, and put a brick or another heavy object on the accelerator. The larger the vehicle, the better.
This will help to offset any “benefit” provided by the dimming of our city’s lights.
And whatever you do, do not gamble between 8:30pm and 9:30pm. Not one dollar not one cent. Bring the city to its knees, and show the powers that be that you don’t come to Las Vegas to be part of some asinine political agenda.
Please help by doing your part to thwart this gigantic circle jerk, and help ensure that it never happens again.
Las Vegas will thank you, and so will Mother Earth.
Together, we can make a difference.
Written by tully on January 30, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Rex, you need a different perspective on this.
See Earth Hour not as a token gesture to “save the earth” but an opportunity to deprive Nevada Power of an hour’s worth of income. Putting the screws to those greedy bastards if you will.
Sure, it’s still a token gesture, but there has to be some satisfaction in depriving those fools of a buck or two. Fight the good fight here.
Written by Scott on January 31, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Disappointing post. i usually love your stuff.
We can easily stress our resources and make the planet much less livable if we are not careful. I agree that do-gooder politicians who ask for such token efforts at conservation do little good. But, to deny the real dangers of ecological damage to our planet, or of a particular ecosystem on it, shows a real lack of awareness or curiosity.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b_0_8?url=search-alias=stripbooks
Written by Rex on February 5, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I hear you man, but I still have to disagree.
If you are a religious person, apparently Jesus is going to swoop down and give us all a ride to heaven in his pimped-out Christmobile within the next thousand years or so … which is even more reason to use this rock up quickly.
Seriously, term like “less livable”, etc are abstract concepts which cannot be quantified.
Less “livable” for who and when?
Bangladesh isn’t “livable” now.
The earth’s oil is certainly going to be used up at some point, and someone is going to be left holding the bag.
I’m not sure if it is relevant that it is fifty or five hundred generations from now.
Written by Joe on March 22, 2009 at 12:14 am
I plan to be on the strip for “Earth Hour”. It should be easy to find me, I’ll be the guy standing next to the searchlights. I just want to do my part.