To mark Earth Hour, or Earth Day, or Latest-Trendy-Groupthink-Feelgood-Season, or whatever we’re calling this current variation on medieval indulgences, Google on its web site has just “turned the lights out” — as a symbolic nod to the notion that we can save the planet by doing things like wearing “organic” t-shirts in the dark and investing in projects anointed by Al Gore, the UN, and the Norwegian parliament (which in its own efforts over the years to turn the lights out has conferred the Nobel Peace Prize not only on Gore, but, among others, on Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei, and the late Yasser Arafat).

Get real. Google is a marvelous creation, born of decades — yea centuries — of human ingenuity, which has brought us everything from electricity to computers, to the Internet (which Al Gore did, in fact, not invent). The thrust of all this has been to enlighten, to illuminate — and it is no accident that the metaphors tend not toward darkness, but toward light. How about turning those lights back on, and spending a little time reading some of the dissenting opinions on the entire “global warming” scare campaign. Check out “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” with its accompanying materials. Check out this post on The Anchoress, with its assorted links on the financial conflicts of this cult, and the intimidation of global-warming skeptics, and the smothering of the voices of thousands of dissenting scientists.

Or MIT’s Richard Lindzen, writing here on global warming “junk science.” Or the list of skeptical scientists here (with details) on Inhofe’s EPW Press Blog. For much much more, just play around on Google with keyword variations on “global warming” and “skeptics,” “junk” “fraud” and “scam.”

Consider: If anyone is giving out Earth Hour awards worldwide, the obvious winner would be Kim Jong Il, who has created in North Korea a realm in which every day is Earth Day (see photo above). Whatever the genuine perils, when it comes to saving the planet — or more to the point, the human race — the better bets are the inventors who are not afraid to light the lamps and burn the midnight oil.