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Hey I was just browsing Google and for obvious reasons found out about this Earth Hour - http://www10.earthhourus.org/
I thought I would spread the word I think it sounds like a cool thing to do. Basically in your own local times turn your lights out in your house from the times of 8pm to 9pm and as a community here I thought we could all do our part.
I'm all for energy conservation and whatnot, but designating an hour to "combat global climate change" sounds dumb to me. Global climate change is yet unproven and has really only been propogated by alarmists... and Al Gore. I do what I can for energy conservation already, don't need to turn my lights off for one pointless hour.
Under construction. Who doesn't like plain text anyway?
I did. Along with a large number of participants here in Sydney, Australia (we just finished about 30 minutes ago - its 2126 AEDT as I write this). It was quite eerie standing on the balcony watching the lights in buildings across the city go out en masse - especially the big illuminated roof signs on the high rises in the CBD. Street lights were still operating for safety reasons but it made things noticeably darker. The council I work for is a major sponsor of this program (City of Sydney) and staff were encouraged to take part as a symbolic gesture.
Ultimately that's what this exercise is - a symbolic gesture of people doing a little bit individually and collectively to reduce the demand for energy (and its cost of production on the natural and physical environment). Here in Australia, the movement generated from Earth Hour 2007 contributed to the new Labor Government signing the Kyoto Protocol promptly after getting into office. I guess the statistics will be rolled out in the next day or two to show how many "cars we took off the road by turning off the lights" and its little "puff" statistics such as those that can make people feel good about their "little bit" or be cynical about the whole thing.
Of course it'll spark debate about what more can/should/must be done - and I already signed up to "green electricity" where, for an extra small surcharge, my electricity supplier will buy the equivalent quantity of electricity I consume from renewable resources (i.e. solar, wind, water, geothermal, etc.) rather than the "cheap and nasty" coal-fired power station.
Wow, that sounds really cool. Unfortunatly I'm not gonna be in an area that I know of that will be participating in such mass. It must truly be a sight to see a city of that size go black.
This "green electricity" you speak of sounds like a pretty cool thing as well. I travel Illinois and the rest of the states quite a bit, one thing in my flights I got to see from Iowa border to Chicago was the large fields of wind farms there are between and I find it to be getting more and more impressive.
I'm also interested to see "how many cars we took off the road".
yeah I heard about this, people were spreading the word on campus. I'd like to participate myself, but unfortunately during that time I'll be at an event and thus have no control over the lights etc. and I can't see the results either...
Now is this just "turn your lights off", or "turn all electricity off"? Also, they actually turn off the streetlights and traffic lights too? that reminds me of the blackout a few summers ago XD
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12!!
When we did Lights Out San Francisco a few months ago,
various organizations in the city turned off "unnecessary" lighting. This included things like the decorative
lights on the Bay Bridge, and lighting in several of the city's more distinctive skyscrapers that make them look
pretty at night. Regular street lighting and such were not affected. The idea isn't to turn the city totally dark,
it's to remind everyone that they can help conserve power by turning off even just one light.
I helped Google turn the lights off, does that
mean I'm off the hook? ;)
Actually, I'll probably go down to the waterfront between the Bay Bridge and the Ferry Building and take in the
sight.
I'll do it; it's fun and reminds people about the importance of saving energy. Plus I just like stuff like
that :P
I actually forgot; but when I went to Google and saw the page was black, I was like "Oh yeah!" Cool.
the burn-powered generators burn just as much fuel whether all the consumers are turned off or on. just as much.
if you look at a Earth's nighttime satellite photo, you'll see that the "low-living-standard"
countries (a.k.a. 2nd/3rd world) are scarcely lit, if at all.
every night.
if you look at a CO2-level-'photo' of the Earth, you'll see pretty much the same thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GHG_by_country_2000.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GHG_per_capita_2000.svg
so, could we call the next month "live-like-in-Africa-to-save-the-Planet" -Month?
"disable-schmar-craft-57-able-video-card -eating-lots-of-watts" -Month?
"buy-less-new-junk -use-the-old-junk-instead" -Month?
tonight people will feel good about doing nothing but talk and mass-fiddling with the lightswitch.
and then man rested.
day out.
I agree with Deepflow. It could possibly cause damage to the power gird if enough people stop using it, too. The power plants are not going to slow down their production of electricity, so, Unless there is a big power storage center somewhere I don't know about or I simply have missed something important, all that power is just going to be pumped into the grid and there it will stay. If enough power is kicked into the grid then transformers can blow, jump switches will trip in an effort to preserve the equipment, sending even more power onto the already over taxed lines. We could see rolling blackouts like what happened to the Northeast in '65, 77' and most recently, '03 costing many millions of dollars. Other than that, this just seems like a dumb idea for what it's trying to promote. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting this beautiful, blue green marble we call home, but this environmental hysteria has got to stop.
There was glitter everywhere! It looked like somebody stabbed
a pixie.
Roadie of .::DarK LeaF::.
I'm sure if there was a chance of something like a mass blackout happening they wouldn't do it.
Of course everyone flicking a switch off for an hour isn't going to change the world; I think the point of this is
just to raise awareness and get more people involved in helping the planet. And to bring everyone together in some way.
Here's an article from this morning's paper in Sydney about it. Check out the attached gallery of some photos (before and after): http://www.smh.com.au/news/earth-hour/please-take-a-bow-sydney/2008/03/30/1206207512977.html. Initial estimates for Sydney CBD were a drop in demand by 12% (or about 20 megawatts for the hour). I'm not sure how many cars that is off the road, but last year was a 10% drop equating to about 87,000 cars for a year. Doing the math, one could add another 17,000 cars to last year for a rough total of 104,000 cars (for the Sydney CBD only)! Now extrapolate that sort of figure out to the suburbs where people took part and extend it around the world where others were supporting the event...
I found out that restaurants in the CBD did a brisk trade by candlelight. Some popular "sky high" restaurants (Sydney Tower Restaurants (at 300 metres up), and Summit Restaurant in Australia Square (on the 47th floor)) were having special events - and charging a premium for them as you were right in the middle of it all.
@ Maplerose: It is a case of turn off your lights and unessential electrical devices (stuff on standby still pulling a bit of electricity). Street lights and traffic lights were still operating for safety reasons, as were perimeter lights on buildings illuminating pathways, etc.
@ Shoujoboy: Its great to see people adopting conservation measures as a normal part of their life and, accordingly, may be a bit cynical about this whole thing. This exercise is really aimed at those who are unaware or don't care or think "what can I as an individual do?". It shows what happens when individuals get together as a community for a common cause - and often people can have a lot of fun doing it at the same time.
Quote by ASH-HikariI'm sure if there was a chance of something like a mass blackout happening they wouldn't do it.
Of course everyone flicking a switch off for an hour isn't going to change the world; I think the point of this is just to raise awareness and get more people involved in helping the planet. And to bring everyone together in some way.
I forgot to take into account the time zones. It can still happen, but it would take a lot more than I originally
thought. My mistake. And I know it's all about raising awareness, but we need to sit down and have a level headed
discussion on this issue. I mean people can't even agree whether it's happening or not happening. Let's
come to a decision before we start throwing money and time away. Put more money and effort towards renewable energies,
cleaner technology, etc, etc. Turning out the lights just makes people think they are doing something. Just like the
Environmental Rally in Washington D.C. several years ago. All that was accomplished was a lot of dancing around and
butting heads.
merged: 03-30-2008 ~ 09:31am
Quote by davidh01Here's an article from this morning's paper in Sydney about it. Check out the attached gallery of some photos (before and after): http://www.smh.com.au/news/earth-hour/please-take-a-bow-sydney/2008/03/30/1206207512977.html. Initial estimates for Sydney CBD were a drop in demand by 12% (or about 20 megawatts for the hour). I'm not sure how many cars that is off the road, but last year was a 10% drop equating to about 87,000 cars for a year. Doing the math, one could add another 17,000 cars to last year for a rough total of 104,000 cars (for the Sydney CBD only)! Now extrapolate that sort of figure out to the suburbs where people took part and extend it around the world where others were supporting the event...
But power plants and buildings (refrigerators, AC, etc, etc) are the main causes of Greenhouse gasses, and the power plants were still firing, producing power, and I doubt people turned off the refrigerator, AC, or any other major machine or appliance. So comparing it to the amount of cars "taken off the road" really doesn't mean all that much.
There was glitter everywhere! It looked like somebody stabbed
a pixie.
Roadie of .::DarK LeaF::.
I'm working for a lighting company based out of Illinois, we travel across the US installing for various companies. The job that I do there is installing LEDs in the Walmart freezer doors (ya know where the frozen pizza is at), apparently they get a huge energy savings by switching over to them. They did research on it and they save about 60% of the energy that they were using previously with the flourescent bulbs they used to have.
So anyways I was at work tonight and I turned off all the lights in the freezer doors. xD Mind you, it's a part of my job everyday, but I still participated dammit hahaha.
Yeah Tama, I think we can let you off the hook this year too hehe.
I was taking a nap then, so I guess I was part of the fun in that hehe...wasn't even trying simply because I don't see it to serve any purpose, like that no buying gas for a day thing
BuBbLeS!
Heehee, I was at a restaurant at the time - they dimmed the lights and only had on these boxy ones.
I participated last year, and enxt year, I reckon there'll be a bigger response from more cities around the globe.
(Yay for Sydney starting it!)
If everybody knows just who you are, then your walk on role becomes a major part. Have you ever attempted to be yourself? When everybody wants you to be someone else... Going up and down and back again..
They said St.Catherine's saved 17 million kilowatt of energy but the week after Earth Hour they used up more than what they saved..And Sydney, Australia broke the record ? (I think..I am not sure)
I turned off the lights and everything for an hour excluding the computer.. xD..
It's really great to see people taking action about this and taking the awareness..
and anyways nice forum ^^..
CHERISH yesterday
DREAM tomorrow
LIVE today
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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GHG_by_country_2000.svg){kind=link}
://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GHG_per_capita_2000.svg){kind=link}
