As many of you no doubt know Earth Hour is approaching. I really don't think about Earth Hour much, or I wouldn't if it weren't for my father. It seems like a cute gesture, though, and I really have nothing at all against it. Still, I'll probably spend Earth Hour catching up on my Netflix queue. Not my father. He is taking the opportunity to celebrate Civilization Hour. It's the hour where you turn on all the things that make you civilized. Every light, every reasonable appliance, and every other thing he can find will be switched on full blast while he rages against the machine, as it were. But that's not the person my dad is.
My dad is an organic farmer who rallies against companies like Monsanto and actively fights to support sustainability in our food. Our family buys raw milk on the black market to make cheese. It’s all very exciting. He’s also a hunter who loves the forest and the natural world in general. He taught me how to trap and I'm teaching him how to forage. This summer he's asked me to help him grow some marijuana. On most other days he's the very picture of sustainability. But come Civilization Hour it all goes out the window.
No seriously. The noise machine kept telling him global warming is a liberal lie and, blam, he's happy to flick on all the lights because ‘fuck Obama, that’s why’. On Earth Day (Scorched-Earth Day in this neck of the woods) he burns Styrofoam. Now, don’t get me wrong, we burn stuff all the time like briars and, when we are bored we throw aerosol cans into a bonfire and take cover before the explosion launches shrapnel into our bodies. Southerners are crazy about fire and, in that, we are no exception. The crazy here is that he is so incensed by the very idea that we, as stewards of the earth, should protect our only home that he actively works to make the world a shittier place. Because it would make democrats sad. Because that’s what the news made a big deal out of. When Fox News rallies against the green agenda then, no lie, people around here quit recycling because fuck the democrats.
I wonder why they do this, how the cognitive dissonance doesn't split their skulls open. My father isn't some ignorant hick. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met and I respect him a great deal. I just don't understand what's going on in his head, how he can support these people who oppose so many things he loves and support the very people he is dedicated to fighting. Republicans are weird.