One of the weirdest reactionary things conservatives do is to gleefully waste energy to show those dumb liberals what they think of their “Earth Day” and “Earth Hour:” Turn on the Lights for Human Achievement Hour.

Tonight, from 8:30 to 9:30, environmentalists will observe Earth Hour, turning off all their lights for an hour. For those who don’t want to spend an hour in the dark, the Competitive Enterprise Institute is offering an alternative: Human Achievement Hour. They are encouraging everyone to turn on the lights in honor of human accomplishments. …

Human beings have made untold achievements until now. Who knows what will be accomplished in the future. In honor of that, I plan to spend Human Achievement Hour reading Atlas Shrugged, with all my lights turned on and Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare For the Common Man” playing in the background.

Turning off lights and sitting in the dark for an hour probably isn’t going to accomplish much to help the environment. The symbolism’s nice, but actually getting out and getting involved politically would be a lot more effective.

But I’ll never understand what’s supposed to be “conservative” about deliberately wasting energy. These people are not well — and if you need further proof for that assertion, just go read some of the comments for this article at townhall.com.

Here’s some more information on the Competitive Enterprise Institute.