Criticisms About Earth Hour.

       Even though there are hundreds of millions of people participating in Earth Hour, there are still some criticisms about Earth Hour. There are some organizations and people that do not support the Earth Hour event and criticize about it. Below are some examples of the criticisms about Earth Hour. 

       The president of ACT on Campus which is the youth arm of New Zealand's ACT Party, Rick Giles told on the breakfast television show Sunrise that instead of Earth Hour Event, we should celebrate ‘Edison Hour’. He alleged that the Earth Hour Event is an anti-technology cause. People may use candles to replace electricity and candles are petroleum-based products. Rick said that if we are heading for some kind of disasters it seems right to use technology to fight with this. However, the arguments have made the young leader disreputable after he said, "I think my argument is so powerful that it's not necessary to talk about it". 

       Other than that, The Christian Science Monitor claimed that most candles are made of paraffin, a heavy hydrocarbon derived from crude oil. Burning a paraffin candle for one hour will release about 10 grams of carbon dioxide. So it will increase the consumption of energy and carbon dioxide emissions. 

      The Ayn Rand Institute stated that participants spend an enjoyable sixty minutes in the dark, safe in the knowledge that the life-saving benefits of industrial civilization are just a light switch away. It suggested us to forget one measly hour with just the lights off but try “Earth Month”. Try spending a month shivering in the dark without heating, electricity, refrigeration; without power plants or generators; without any of the labor-saving, time-saving, and therefore life-saving products that industrial energy makes possible. 

      The Ayn Rand Institute said that Earth Hour presents the disturbing spectacle of people celebrating those lights being extinguished. Its call for people to renounce energy and to rejoice at darkened skyscrapers makes its real meaning unmistakably clear: Earth Hour symbolizes the renunciation of industrial civilization. 

References : 

Altius Directory. Earth Hour Events 2013. Retrieved from http://www.altiusdirectory.com/Society/earth-hour-events.html

YouTube. I think my argument is so powerful that it’s not necessary to talk about it. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B9MqNzQuuk&noredirect=1

The Christian Science Monitor. Does lighting candles for Earth Hour defeat the purpose? Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2009/0327/does-lighting-candles-for-earth-hour-defeat-the-purpose

ARC Ayn Rand Center. The Real Meaning of Earth Hour. Retrieved from http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=22887&news_iv_ctrl=1021