Read more : http://bikerbernie.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/earth-hour-turn-on-all-your-lights/

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http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/busted-earth-hour.html

Tori Taylor, the online communications lady, writes : With an estimated 50 million global participants in the WWF Earth Hour in 2008, this year is set to rise above last year’s figures, with one billion individuals projected to take part, as the amount of people showing interest in climate change and the need to make a stand increases.

that is a 20fold increase in 1 year, and thereby ressembles the meteoric rise of Google on the Nasdaq … if that rate of increase continues, we’ll have to contact a few other planetary systems for next year’s event …

“The cynics took a (well-lit?) backseat tonight during Earth Hour as Torontonians blew past last year’s powered down mark on the way to a 15% reduction in electricity use. Just before 9:30 and the official end of Earth Hour the Big Board hit 2545 MW, a 450 MW drop from a typical Toronto Saturday night in late March. That’s the rough equivalent of turning off 750,000 60 watt light bulbs.”

1) what is a typical Toronto Saturday night in late March reference? Another average? How about comparing to the Friday night before?
2) 750,000 60 watt light bulbs may seem a huge number but is roughly the equivalent of two small 40 storeys office towers lights, obviously a rarity in Toronto…

EARTH HOUR CANDLE BURNS TOWNHOUSE

A Mississauga, Ont. family who tried to light a candle for Earth Hour nearly burned down their townhouse.

Afshan Khalid, 46, said her eight-year-old daughter tried to light a candle before Earth Hour started at 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
The family was going to see friends and when getting ready, they lighted scented candles so they could see. While they were gone, Khalid’s son Omar, 19, came home at 9:30 p.m. with a friend, saw smoke and called 911.

Platoon Chief Paul Hunter of the Mississauga Fire Department said the fire caused an estimated $15,000 damage.

*But you didn’t know it would appear (in the Victoria [BC] Times Colonist directly next to this article–*

MARCH WEATHER LEAVING A COLD IMPRESSION ON VICTORIA

March is going out like a refrigerated lamb.

Temperatures were 1.8 degrees Celsius cooler than normal for the month, said David Jones of Environment Canada.

The normal maximum temperature for this time of year is 12 degrees and the minimum is 4, but most days seemed a lot cooler than that. Yesterday, Victoria reached 7.4 degrees.

But if you’re looking for relief in April, you’ll likely be disappointed.

“It looks like it’s not going to get much better,” Jones said.

“I don’t see warm, sunny dry weather for a week, anyway.”
He said temperatures will remain cool for the next 30 days, according to the computer models. “I think people are getting a little bit antsy about it, looking for a little relief from all this.”

1) plants had plenty of CO2 for millions of years before we got here. They don’t need, and don’t benefit from, extra emissions.
You are half right. C02, in the past has been much, much higher, and plants thrived then. Your statement that plants don’t benefit from higher emissions is patently false. The word “need” is just a weasel word on your part, since it’s relative. They manage to do with lower C02 levels, but do better with the higher levels.

2) this is a PR talking point dreamed up by the American Enterprise Institute. There is NO merit to it. Don’t believe me? Check out their site. Be careful if you like to spout this one, you’re being taken in by a lobby group’s PR campaign.

You are the one spouting nonsense and AGW style rhetoric. It’s silly to claim that the idea that C02 is beneficial to plants is an AEI “talking point”, since it’s been known for years. Further, you bringing up AEI is simply a typical AGWer’s diversionary tactic. It isn’t necessary, or even smart for anyone to simply believe what a particular institute or site has to say about a subject.

I’ll take a straight debate, hell, I welcome it.
You seem to be parroting the AGW line pretty well, so I doubt that very much.
And, by the way, we’re climate realists. You people are actually the deniers – of reality. Your will to Believe, unfortunately, is stronger than your desire for the truth.

1) plants had plenty of CO2 for millions of years before we got here. They don’t need, and don’t benefit from, extra emissions.
2) this is a PR talking point dreamed up by the American Enterprise Institute. There is NO merit to it. Don’t believe me? Check out their site. Be careful if you like to spout this one, you’re being taken in by a lobby group’s PR campaign.

I’ll take a straight debate, hell, I welcome it. But listening to deniers rattle off these fake justifications for business-as-usual is like listening to a 5th grader make up reasons why he should be able to stay up late. You know it’s self-serving and fabricated.

If you want to cautious and skeptical, that’s fine, but try not to be a parrot repeating the lines that get fed to you.

So their equipment designer thinks the ice could vanish soon. Has he designed equipment that can be used for 20 years, and can measure an increase in thickness?

Anyone who does not follow your request becomes a “cynical antisocial self-interest” person. Interesting moral viewpoint…

“It’s very small, only symbolic, but it’s something, even if only an expression of how much some portion of the population care about our world. The real potential for positive change can come only through public policy, but that requires awareness and widespread support. Small steps like Earth Day are helping to bring about that support.”

It is a small portion BUT and this “but” always comes in at one point, and next is when Hansen says democracy doesn’t work… Hence, the small portion should influence the public policy and enforce the change. That’s really what this almost cute statement is all about. Earth Hour is a request until you’ll manage to make it law and become an injunction. This is the typical politeness of budding totalitarism so grandmas are not afraid… until they are thrown under the wheels.

“If you want to measure statistics, don’t measure energy usage, take polls of what percentage of the public is aware that excess energy use is detrimental, and would support public policy measures to reduce fossil fuel dependence and develop cleaner energy sources. Clearly, those statistics are gradually rising.”

If we want? I would expect you would appreciate to know if your lobbying is successful or not. And we too want to know the difference between your discourse and the reality. Really, listening to you, I am very surprised that the greens are not already representing 90% of the voters…

As for excess energy use being detrimental, we all pay our bills and are all aware how expensive energy is, thank you. Here in Canada, BC Hydro has even offered a two tier rate, soon multi tier so the “rich” can pay… Such discriminations of course are not permitted in the receiving end of the Health Care system but strangely acceptable on the front end…

Again you go on the public policies as if there was no connection between the public purse and those who fill it, the taxpayers who are incidentaly voters. This reminds me the far-left French Besancenot suggesting it is time to block the entire country so the democratic voice of people can be heard… Of course last time we checked in a free national election, Mr Besancenot only received about 5%… In what sense his 5% should dictate the lives of the 95% who did not elect him? Here, in what sense the un-elected greens should highjack the agenda? Because of the science of Global warming? well then think again because that one is not working. Because of some high moral ground? Well who says your moral is more valuable than mine? And we all witnessed during Revolutions that there are always some extremists who will declare your moral, John, is not good enough for them… and you thought you were a good citizen: beware of this unless you are prepared to stand proud along the Robespierre and other Fouquier-Tinville…

There was quite an article recently on Ontario’s wind power backstage? Do you really want to open that can of lobby worms? Because so far it shows how un-elected lobby group are funneling taxpayers money into wind power through people who are judge and parties…

As for the “clearly rising” we do have to take your word for it do we? Or are just the Globe and Mail cute little candle snap shots statistically significant? You may not like it, but in California, the MW are there to show how insignificant this event was despite an impressive media campaign.

Since you are prone to offer your statistics, you’ll kindly provide the source for the financing of this entire media blitz, every year so citizens who do not support this abuse of their dollars can lobby their elected officials to stop wasting their contribution from the public money. After all, this is their money, not yours.

oh btw i already said im vegan

So…..

No, I said I’d stop. Back to the hospital for more stitches for my tongue.

jeez (15:08:11) :

. . . I’ll stop now, because posters are not supposed to attack other posters on this site, but little gets under my skin faster than some upper middle class braggart professing their sustainable lifestyle.

Ditto. I’ve known folks with sustainable ‘lifestyles’, only they wouldn’t call them that, because they didn’t choose them. These people live what we call the ‘third world’; they grow their own food, make their own clothes, tote their own water and firewood. Now and then, if they have a little surplus, they trade it for a bit of cloth, or an iron knife or plowshare. They don’t have running water, or electricity, or cars, or even bicycles, and if they were available, they couldn’t afford them. Their only doctors are traditional shamans, who work feverishly to drive out evil spirits.

The secret of the success of the industrial world is surplus, surplus energy, mostly, that allows a few to do the work of many, e.g. in the USA, where 5% of the population feeds the rest, who spend their days in nice homes, going to comfortable jobs, and visiting blogs on the Internet—the very existence of which would be a mystery to those in the truly ‘sustainable’ world.

The more surplus we and others can generate, the faster the rest of the world will enjoy the ‘lifestyle’ we have come to take for granted. To brag about a ‘sustainable lifestyle’ when you are completely supported by armies of other people (in farming, industry, transportation, communications, etc., etc.) is the height of hypocrisy.

/Mr Lynn