Great post. This coming weekend is an exciting time for our family. My wife is taking our oldest daughter (now 12 — yikes! Where do I get a teen-sized Burqini?) to the YW broadcast for the first time. I’m thrilled for them (and a bit jealous that dads can’t go). Trumps Earth Hour for sure.

Hey, the lights in the chapel at least will be dark!

The real problem is that man-made climate change is a hoax. I’m sorry to see that D&M have bought into it.

Including the Church ? The real problem is many do not see the problem

Lights out » LDS Church, Utah’s capital city join worldwide event
By Judy Fahys

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 03/27/2009 12:07:08 AM MDT

Many times the Las Vegas Strip and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don’t see eye to eye, but they will this Saturday.

During “Earth Hour,” Sin City and the iconographic temple of the Saints go dark for 60 minutes beginning at 8:30 p.m. local time as part of the worldwide effort to focus on climate change.

The World Wildlife Fund, organizer of Earth Hour, has signed up 2,400 cities in 82 countries. That’s eight times as many participants as last year, when more than 36 million people took part.

The lights-off hour is called a potent symbol of what can happen through collective action.

“Climate Change is a growing international crisis no country can afford to overlook,” said Egypt’s First Lady Suzanne Mubarak. “Global warming negatively impacts the environment as well as the health and livelihoods of people worldwide.

“Earth Hour heightens awareness and brings hope to the preservation of our shared planet’s precious environment today and for generations to come.”

Salt Lake City will be participating by turning off the lights at the downtown City County Building. Marriott hotels worldwide will be a part, as will McDonald’s, the National Geographic Society, Wells Fargo and other businesses.

The lights on the Salt Lake Temple will be turned off 8:30 – 9:30 p.m., said LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter. But lights associated with public safety, including those illuminating the sidewalks and visitor

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centers on Temple Square, will remain on.

“Prudent stewardship and wise use of resources are principles that Church leaders have emphasized throughout the history of the Church,” said Trotter. “The Church encourages its members to join with their fellow citizens in supporting worthy programs that will make their communities better places to live and raise their families.”

fahys@sltrib.com

Earth Hour heightens awareness and brings hope to the preservation of our shared planet’s precious environment today and for generations to come.

No, it doesn’t. It’s just a fad. The moral equivalent of a hula-hoop. Only it will be forgotten much more quickly.

Turning off your lights for an hour doesn’t make the world a better place any more than not flushing your toilet for a day.

Frankly, it disturbs me that the church is using the House of the Lord to make what amounts to a political statement.

The first time the church participated in this a couple of years ago, they turned out the lights in the Church Office Building — not that anybody was there, but hey, symbolism is symbolism, right? But they turned off the lights using some kind of a master switch, and turned them back on the same way. The problem is that whatever switch that is, is all or nothing. That meant that ALL the lights came back on, even ones that are normally off, such as the ceiling lights in the library over the microfilm readers. Those are normally off to allow enough darkness for reading films, but there is no switch in the library that controls *only* those lights. Each ceiling light in those areas — dozens of lights, with four flourescent tubes in each one — had to be turned off one at a time using individual switches in the electricians’ closet. It took days and days for the technicians to get around to the library, after having worked on similar problems throughout the building. It’s hard not to imagine that the power wasted by all those unnecessary lights through all those days (never mind lost productivity because you couldn’t read the washed out films in full light) was greater than the power saved by turning out the lights that virtually no one could have been using during Earth Hour.

But hey, symbolism is symbolism, right?

Yes indeed , the Church is making a statement for a greater concern. Earth Hour is awareness action. It makes people stop and think about our environment. The Church is sending message with awesome visual effect. Maybe the next step is to put solar panels on top of the Conference Center. LDS Church going green maybe.

Ardis: that is the craziest sounding light switch in the universe. How could any building be wired like that?

Frank is dead. DEAD. Like Elvis. Leave them be.

BrianJ, I don’t know how it worked. I only know that it did work that way. And it was a mess.

The COB tries to be greener in a few ways. The water in the fountains and waterways on the plaza is recirculated (although I suspect greenies would prefer that no landscaping or waterscaping be done at all), and a time or two when the city had a water emergency for a few hours because a break in a pipe allowed mud to enter part of the system the cafeteria has switched from dishes to paper cups and plates to minimize the water used for dishwashing.

“Awareness action.” Like protest marches around the temple block or protesters chaining themselves to the federal building doors or the PETA newsletter that complained that man was the only species to drink the milk intended for another species’ offspring (yeah, right. Here, kitty, kitty!) — they make me aware of an issue, but certainly NOT in the way the participants imagine. The causes they represent are made foolish, and in reaction I’m far more likely to go overboard in the opposite direction in order not to encourage the “awareness” actors in their stupid stunts. If you want my cooperation, appeal to my better nature; don’t make your cause pointless at best.

Part of the key to this is each of us doing our part. Some of it is bigger than we are as individuals. Most of you have heard of T. Boone Pickens idea of a combination of alternative energy and converting to natural gas for transport. I think they are having an email march on Washington coming up in early April.

It is an exciting time in our history – should be very little negative about it as I get the feeling most of you will agree. I’m going the EV route at present with more to come as, if and when I get the funds.

A lot of it has to do with getting us all involved and this little show, while insignificant in some way, certainly won’t hurt. Love Donny and Marie’s happy faces connected with it.

What Ardis said.

When one is trying to determine if increase of global temperatures is human induce and its effects on ocean levels, please view this Nova documentary. Perhaps the LDS Church is on to something.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/extremeice/program.html

I think they are having an email march on Washington coming up in early April.

What exactly is an email march? A flood of email on congressional staffers (who don’t read them anyway)?

Looks like us global-warming deniers aren’t the only folks who think that Earth Hour is a dumb idea. Al Gore didn’t even participate.

Tippetts,

The LDS environmental ethic is obvious and well-documented.

And not all environmental ethics are created equal. For instance, I despise Gorean Climate Change as the stuff of lies, for the most part. It was one more thing for liberal politics to attack the Bush administration- evidence of which has been the extreme loss of traction nay, validity, of the idea as of late.

Environmental stewardship is one thing. Hype is another.

But it is clearly so much more than just “A statement that mortals must use his environmental resources with judgment.” That scripture, along with many others, indicates that there is more to creation than just to sate the desires of our consumption. That some of creation is for pleasure, the soul, happiness, smell, regeneration, etc. And where is the line drawn? Our needs. Do we need an SUV that gets 12 mpg? Do we need a 4,000 sqft house with all the energy costs associated? Probably not. Its not a condemnation of those that own those things, but rather a way for us to assess our lives and our place in the world and stewardship over the earth.

Is Earth Hour a gimmick? Sure. Has it gotten hundreds of millions of people around the globe thinking about and talking about our environment? It has. It may not appeal to everyone, but it is certainly not a bad thing.

Do we need a 4,000 sqft house with all the energy costs associated?

Yes, we do. My wife and I lived in a 1300 sq foot condo with our three kids. We were ready to ritually sacrifice the kids. We live in a Texas McMansion now. Our kids are still alive. So, as a good leftie I am sure you can appreciate the pre-emptive reduction in the prison population which my larger house directly caused.

Thoughts from our prophets and other LDS.

Mormons Speak Out on…
The Environment
Brigham Young: Are you not dissatisfied, and is there not bitterness in your feelings, the moment you find a [c]anyon put in the possession of an individual, and power given unto him to control the timber, wood, rock, grass, and, in short, all its facilities?1

Ezra Taft Benson: The outward expressions of irreverence for God, for life, and for our fellowmen take the form of things like littering, heedless strip-mining, heedless pollution of water and air. 2

Gordon B. Hinckley: This earth is [Christ's] creation. When we make it ugly, we offend him.3

Alexander B. Morrison: [O]ur current way of life is simply environmentally unsustainable. The immensely complex and still not fully understood systems that sustain life on earth are being destroyed by human activities.4

Richard F. Haglund, Jr. & David J. Whittaker: Dominion over the earth is not a license to plunder, but a sacred trust to conserve life and protect the environment.5

Alan J. Hawkins, David C. Dollahite & Clifford J. Rhoades: [T]he hearts of today’s fathers and mothers are turned to the children when they begin to care about what kind of natural environment their descendants will have. “Cursed” and “utterly wasted” (Mal. 4:6; Joseph Smith–History 1:39) are accurate descriptions of what the earth will look like if practices of reckless disregard for the natural environment continue.6

Terry Tempest Williams: If we act on the premise that we are not alone, that other individuals and creatures have wants and needs, that our definition of community is not just human-centered but creation-centered, then we begin to engage in a spiritual economics that promises to be more unselfish than our present relationship to Other.7

Ted Wilson: Though it is true that…people must make a living, it is also true that the forces of development on an increasingly crowded planet threaten to tear down our temples of nature. We must seek wisdom and temperance that go beyond the equilibrium of the marketplace. 8

Walter van Beek: Though possibly far-fetched, one European LDS style might be the development of a ‘green Mormonism’. Ecological issues weigh heavily in Europe, and European members sometimes wonder why church leaders say so little about ecological problems. Mormon doctrine easily can accommodate an involved partnership with the environment. 9

NOTES
1. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854-1886), 1:211.
2. Ezra Taft Benson, “Problems Affecting the Domestic Tranquility of Citizens of the United States,” Vital Speeches 42 (1 Feb. 1976): 240.
3. Gordon B. Hinckley, “What Shall I Do Then with Jesus Which Is Called Christ?” Ensign (Dec. 1983): 3.
4. Alexander B. Morrison, Visions of Zion (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1993), 77-78.
5. Richard F. Haglund, Jr. & David J. Whittaker, “Intellectual History,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 688.
6. Alan J. Hawkins, David C. Dollahite & Clifford J. Rhoades, “Turning the Hearts of the Fathers to the Children: Nurturing the Next Generation,” BYU Studies 33 (Spring 1993): 284.
7. Terry Tempest Williams, “West of Eden,” New Genesis: A Mormon Reader on Land and Community, ed. Terry Tempest Williams, William B. Smart & Gibbs M. Smith (Salt Lake City: Gibbs-Smith, 1998), 215.
8 Ted Wilson, “The Truth of Granite: A Canyon Conversion,” New Genesis, 15.
9. Wouter van Beek, “Ethnization and Accommodation: Dutch Mormons in Twenty-first-century Europe (Dialogue, a Journal of Mormon Thought: Volume 29, no.1, Spring 1996)

Re: 33

The simple answer to your question about a 4,000 square foot home and an SUV with 12 mpg is yes. And, for me, it is an absolutely guilt free yes.

When the Laurie Davids of the world give up their multiple homes and mansions and private jets then I might consider downsizing for the environment. On second thought, to follow Laurie David on anything would be really stupid so I’ll stick with my adequate home and 2! gas guzzling SUVs.

Last Saturday during this stunt I was watching “Monster v. Aliens” with my 9 yr old while my wife attended the Women’s broadcast at another member’s home. While we were out, we followed Mr. Gore’s lead and intentionally left the lights on in our empty 4,000+ square foot home.

rbc,

Only heedless strip mining is abhored.

Then again, it doesn’t take a prophet to see how the practice (as well as many other practices) needs to go the way of the Flintstones.

I tend to agree with what Church and other wise leaders have said about environmental stewardship, but only as a matter of personal philosophy.

That said, I don’t think there is overwhelming doctrinal support for environmental activism. But I can find more good reasons than bad to turn off my lights for one hour.

And regarding the 4,000 square foot McMansions and SUVs- as long as their not in forclosure/collections and recently furbished, you can bet the house and car are relatively energy efficient- and the suburban home comes with open space to reduce the urban heat island and therefore, Global Warming. Attacks on such things are usually narrow and misguided.

Rbc. Will Gordon B Hinckley do? Gordon B. Hinckley: This earth is [Christ's] creation. When we make it ugly, we offend him.3

The LDS Church leaders has always spoken out on secular matters.

Lancaster,

President Hinckley’s statement is apodictic. It takes zero prophetic/priesthood insight to make such a statement, and I write that as a huge admirer of President Hinckley. My wife, who holds no priesthood and likes President Hinckley more than me, could have made the same statement. My 9 yr old daughter knows as much.

The rub is how to define beauty? Does President Hinckley get to define beauty, or is that something which is left to individuals, companies and governments to sort out? I submit we can all reach our own definition of beauty and act accordingly, with no spiritual consequences.

Personally, I’d like LDS leaders to speak out on more important secular topics like the NCAA tournament. I’d like to know which team the Prophet likes this weekend-Villanova or Michigan State. I’m pulling for Michigan State, but I haven’t digested all the GA and Prophetic opinions on what makes a national champion and until I do so, I’m not sure whom to root for. More importantly, I want to know whom the Prophet likes in the Women’s tournament. A lot of upsets in that tournament which makes picking the eventual winner more difficult.