Let there be...less light

[Sherrinator]

Earth hour.

Apparently a pretty big contingent of sydney-siders made their way to sydney harbour to watch the city's lights go out and save energy.

I wonder how much fuel these people burnt to watch the event?

 

[MightyFighting]

I wonder how much fuel these people burnt to watch the event?

You're so clever.

 

[MSR273]

Earth hour.

Apparently a pretty big contingent of sydney-siders made their way to sydney harbour to watch the city's lights go out and save energy.

I wonder how much fuel these people burnt to watch the event?

heh heh, good point.

what a useles example of total tokenism. Look at me, I'm an eco warrior because I turned out some lights for an hour.

 

[Dry Rot]

heh heh, good point.

what a useles example of total tokenism. Look at me, I'm an eco warrior because I turned out some lights for an hour.

Agreed - stupid, dangerous tokenism.

 

[MSR273]

On SBS news, the whole gimic has been reported as a flop, with many lights in Sydney left on.

 

[Armwarmer]

Sad thing is, everything is tokenism right now.

Embrace the end of days. Let there be light!

 

[Borry]

Agreed - stupid, dangerous tokenism.

Fair point.

 

[Dry Rot]

Fair point.

BTW, did you know this was dreamed up by an ad agancy?

 

[midorigreenwood]

BTW, did you know this was dreamed up by an ad agancy?

so it wasn't the brainchild of that hot cheerleader on the Today show? ;_;

I feel used!!!

 

[Dr AlfAndrews]

Would be a great idea if it was done permanently, every night from 8 p.m. to sunrise, and enforced by law.

 

[camsmith]

Yeah.. went great.

Gotta hate technology.

 

[Borry]

BTW, did you know this was dreamed up by an ad agancy?

No, but I am studying environmental engineering at uni, and even from my perspective it was stupid and dangerous tokenism.

 

[Sherrinator]

You're so clever.

Yep i know

 

[Bombers_Forever]

*Bump*

On again tonight by worldwide.

The thought is good but really, one hour won't do much. Look at how many lights are left on all the time (e.g. city buildings).

 

[JW Frogen]

*Bump*

On again tonight by worldwide.

The thought is good but really, one hour won't do much. Look at how many lights are left on all the time (e.g. city buildings).

I am going to light my house up like a Christmas tree on crystal-meth.

Some on has to make a stand!

 

[camsmith]

I am going to light my house up like a Christmas tree on crystal-meth.

Some on has to make a stand!

Nice work!

Good to see others join the hour of power.

 

[camsmith]

More on the stupidity of "Earth Hour".

Hard to hold a candle to Earth Hour

Terry McCrann | March 29, 2008

THERE'S a stunningly naive but also completely unintended honesty about tonight's "Earth Hour". Announcing that this is the future we have for you - literally turning off the lights.

Another word is stupidity. The embrace of something which in our culture - indeed, all cultures - has always conceptualised negativity, bleakness and death, figurative and real. Turning off the lights.

Further, it announces symbolic denial of a central tenet of what might loosely be called the climate change agenda. That cutting carbon does not have to mean destruction of our economy and our lifestyles.

If we can keep the lights on, figuratively and literally, by a seamless shift to alternative energy, what's the meaning in turning them off?

All this is given even further resonance by the even sillier game-playing around Earth Hour. Virgin Blue proudly proclaims that it might well have "Australia's largest candlelight dinner" in its hangar in Brisbane tonight.

After many if not most of the 3000 guests have flown in on greenhouse gas belching - presumably Virgin Blue - jets.

Having a candlelit dinner is romantic and feel-good at the same time. But only when you can turn the lights back on. Should we imbibe the message, along with the food and wine, that in Sir Richard Branson's future we would not be able to?

That we really would go back to a 19th century future? Presumably, but with jets and their appropriate carbon offsets. <snip>

The bigger, more holistic, point about Earth Hour and the inchoate ambitions that underlie it, is that for the first time in human history we are embarked on deliberately making more expensive the absolute underpinning of human existence itself, not just "lifestyle". Energy.

That is, of course, self-imposed, as contrasted with occasions when it has been imposed, like OPEC and oil. To, in our specific case, absolutely no effect.

Cutting our carbon emissions by 90 per cent would have exactly the same impact on global climate as turning off the lights for an hour tonight - with or without candles -- will have. Zero.

The answer is, of course, that if we all thought and behaved like that, there would be no effective reduction. We all have to share, every bit helps, and so on.

The question posed by that answer is an extension of the classic prisoner's dilemma. What if we cut and nobody else does? Or at least the ones that matter don't - the US and China, and tomorrow India as well?

That would suggest an obvious answer. There is no sense, common or every otherwise, in being a carbon-cutting leader. This is absolutely different to the free-trade context, where there is precise and measurable benefit in being a leader.

And this is even more emphatically true in the context of what is regarded by enthusiasts as our greatest sin: our world-leading carbon emissions per head. We really do have more - the most - to lose from carbon cutting.

This is true irrespective of whether we are a joint beneficiary with the entire world of a post-carbon future. Or merely the victim, joint or otherwise, of the failure to achieve sufficient global cuts.

From a public policy perspective, the greatest danger is that none of this will be subject to rigorous analysis. I do not mean the science, but the economics.

Accepting the science, the first analytical choice is to assess the costs and benefits of the two "alternatives" and the range between them. The alternatives being: living with a carbon-warmed world, and cutting carbon emissions sufficiently to stop that.

We have already seen a fundamental failure to engage with this in the Stern Review, the purported and now fundamentally discredited analysis for the British Government of the costs and benefits of tackling carbon-induced climate change.

Our Productivity Commission was polite but nevertheless devastating in its intellectually rigorous assessment of Stern.

Politely, it found that "value judgments and ethical perspectives" had led to Stern's estimates of future economic damage being substantially higher and abatement costs lower than in most previous studies. <snip>

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23448345-30538,00.html

The world is laughing at us:

India -

It’s easy to poke fun at Sydney’s Earth Hour ...

US -

"The latest bright idea from the country that gave us “Crocodile Dundee” is to have everyone across the globe turn off their lights for an hour at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Apparently, a bunch of neo-Luddites in Sydney did this last year and it made them feel good about themselves, so they’ve decided to give the rest of the world a chance to achieve a similar sense of self-worth."

http://redeye.chicagotribune.com/red-032708-proft,0,6335659.story

 

[Matt_TY]

I accept the fact of global warming and I fully acknowledge that it's time to take real action on renewable energy.

Turning off my lights and appliances for an hour is going to do precisely bugger-all to achieve said action.

That's why it's 8:45pm on Saturday 29 March and I am proudly typing this on a switched-on computer in a room with the light on.

Really wanna save the world, all you folks that're off waving candles? You should've been on your computer, opening Outlook, and firing off pro-renewable energy emails to your local MP. All of you. At once. They'll turn the page in tomorrow's paper that shows slightly dimmer satellite pictures without a blink, but it takes some time and nerve for them (OR their secretaries) to delete 1000 emails from potential voters in their area when they get back to the office on Monday morning.

 

[Mr P@H]

I rarely have the light on anyway, do i get a rebate?

 

[patsmith]

To the people saying that one hour means bugger all, of course it does. I think the whole point is awareness, and if it gets people talking about it then it has been successful.

Hell, the fact it was covered in international media is pretty crazy.

 

[Borry]

We have had plenty of awareness and the problem is that many people who participated in it will not do anything genuine to solve the problem on a regular basis and will go back to life as normal. Still gotta have that large house with 2 bathrooms and living room+lounge room+entertainment room etc., that large 4WD/V8 car, the latest plasma screen etc. etc.

 

[mantis]

We have had plenty of awareness and the problem is that many people who participated in it will not do anything genuine to solve the problem on a regular basis and will go back to life as normal. Still gotta have that large house with 2 bathrooms and living room+lounge room+entertainment room etc., that large 4WD/V8 car, the latest plasma screen etc. etc.

I didn't turn my lights off because I wasn't at home.

But I do my bit everyday. I have no lights on in my house at night, except when I am cooking, I have the lights turned off while I watch TV, or on the computer, I only have lights on at night when I have guests. Not only to save the planet, but to save me an expensive electricity bill.

 

[camsmith]

To the people saying that one hour means bugger all, of course it does. I think the whole point is awareness, and if it gets people talking about it then it has been successful.

Hell, the fact it was covered in international media is pretty crazy.

Are you kidding me? You dont think the hundreds of news reports and "the sky is falling" dramatic alarmist stories in the papers is enough awareness?

People are more aware of greeny alarmism now than ever before.

 

[camsmith]

But I do my bit everyday. I have no lights on in my house at night, except when I am cooking, I have the lights turned off while I watch TV, or on the computer, I only have lights on at night when I have guests.

Yeah great, pity you'll be blind 10 years.

You can have earth hour 24/7 then.

Not only to save the planet, but to save me an expensive electricity bill.

Oh, so now you care about electricity costs?

 

[The Teflon Dean]

What is all this crap supposed to be in aid of?

Want some real advice?

Have less children and buy less nonessential consumer crap.