Environmental Alarmists Ask Jewish Celebrants to Burn One Fewer Hanukkah Candle to Fight Global Warming 

Just when you thought that global warming lunatics couldn't descend any deeper into their morass of absurdity, they proceed to pioneer new realms of insanity. 

Their latest target?  Nothing less than the traditional Jewish Hanukkah menorah.  We couldn't make this up. 

As reported this week by the Jerusalem Post, a group of Israeli environmental extremists calling themselves the "Green Hanukkia" campaign is sanctimoniously instructing Jews across the world to light one fewer candle in their Hanukkah menorahs this year in order to slow global warming. 

According to the campaign's founders, each menorah candle can produce - hold your breath - a mind-boggling 15 grams of carbon dioxide.  Multiplying this amount by the estimated 44 million candles that Israeli households will light during the eight-day Hanukkah holiday, they assert that "it adds up." 

Under Jewish tradition, Hanukkah commemorates the recapture of ancient Jerusalem from Greek and Assyrian dominance, and the simultaneous rededication of Jerusalem's temple, where a miniscule amount of oil miraculously burned for eight days. 

Shamelessly capitalizing upon this miracle theme, Liad Ortar, one of Green Hanukkia's founders, insolently asserted that "the campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle.  Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation."    

In other words, according to environmentalists, we must re-think "religion and how it fits into the current situation," rather than vice-versa.  Never mind ancient tradition and religious ritual - they now must yield to the new god of global warming. 

Fortunately, some sober Jewish leaders are unamused by Green Haunukkia's bizarre campaign.  These leaders point out that menorah candles constitute a critical part of longstanding Hanukkah tradition, and should not be sacrificed at the altar of global-warming hysteria.  Avraham Ravitz, a member of Israel's Knesset, stated that these environmentalists are "crazy people."  And Rabbi Stephen Steindel further observed that "religion takes so little of people's focus as it is, I would want to go slowly in giving up obligations and traditions when there are so many other ways to protect the environment."  

In his own version of Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake," however, Green Hanukkia co-founder Tom Wegner responded that the group isn't anti-religious because religious observers "could forego using the shamas (the candle used to light the other menorah candles), which is not required for fulfilling the mitzvah." 

How gracious of him. 

If environmental extremists can descend to this degree of shameless triviality, there is no telling what harmless human tradition they will target next.  For instance, will Green Hanukkia create a subsidiary organization named "Green Birthday" and seek to eliminate birthday candles? 

A more likely effort, continuing their current persecution of menorah candles, would obviously be to form the form the anti-cooking brigades because of the alleged environmental impact.  But perhaps we should be careful about giving them any new bright ideas. 

Regardless, the simple fact is that human activity has very little effect on constantly-changing temperatures of our planet, as demonstrated by the drastic climatic fluctuations that occurred prior to human industrialization.  For instance, the Great Lakes were once glaciers, but obviously melted without any human contribution.  Good thing that Al Gore wasn't around with his movie camera and pointer during the Ice Age, or Chicago's waterfront might look quite different. 

Carbon dioxide itself constitutes a very small portion of the earth's overall atmosphere, and human activity contributes a very small portion of even that amount.  Accordingly, when viewed in proper context, attempts to attribute climate change causation to human activity, let alone something like menorah candles burning eight days per year, are silly. 

If the members of Green Hanukkia would truly like to reduce the amount of hot air entering the earth's atmosphere, they'd be better off stuffing a sock in Al Gore's mouth than targeting Jewish Hanukkah celebrants.