The WWF sponsored Earth Hour has already come and gone in the Korean time zone, and the North Korean proletariat has claimed a stunning victory over its evil capitalist neighbor, South Korea.
Oh, wait.
Seems it is always that way.
I like this line from Alan Caruba at the link above:
Like fire, electricity is truly a gift of the gods. It is the difference between the Dark Age and the present age…
I know WUWT carried this photo before, but it is always good to regularly remind ourselves how much we have to be thankful for.
It also reminds me that if we could get our hands on North Korean surface temperature records, we’d be able to get a minimally UHI polluted signal. – Anthony
Be sure to check out this post:
Tracking Earth Hour in the Greenest State
Tonight my house will be as a candle in the dark.
We have done our Earth Hour too, 11 times over. South Oxfordshire suffered a power cut from 3am to about 2pm. We are now on a diesel generator until Southern Electric reconnects us. An enforced green protest, maybe.
LOL, would be funnier if N. Korea wasn’t in the midst of yet another famine though.
LOL That was great! Thanks!
Low carbon economy, equal distribution of wealth, centrally directed economical growth. Way to go, comrades!
Yep, they have a term for Earth Hour supporters and sponsors.
“The lights are on but nobody’s home”
What nonsense.
More seriously – Earth Hour is clearly just another facet of the new green gaia religion. Imagine in 100 years people may not join together and celebrate Xmas anymore – they will join together and switch off the lights and power – ritual festivities may involve the sacrificial destruction of machines – perhaps by then we will live like Amish – no machines at all…back to a horse and cart.
Actually, it’s called Earth Year. I really feel sorry for North Koreans (at least anybody outside of their Dynastic Tyrannical Gov’mt).
I believe Cap and Trade will have a similar impact here in the US. Forcing people to be subservient to the Earth through government policy rather than the reverse is never a good thing.
I don’t understand why more people don’t realize all the good that has come from our use of those “evil” fossil fuels. Just look at how life expectancy has risen. Energy use isn’t bad, it saves and improves lives.
Wow. Who knew North Koreans are such committed environmentalists?
Seriously…I spoke to a few folks last year that were harassed by their neighbors kids’ for leaving the lights on during this WWF sham. One even had his house egged.
This is the utopian dream. The commies know better what you need than yoou do.
One of the commie blogs, climate progress also highly restricts what can be posted. If it doesn’t promote energy central planning and control, it is deleted.
Here’s living like the Amish:
(what a hoot!)
North Korea has universal health care, but not universal electricity.
That’s simply a mark of the success of North Korea’s Earth Hour Offset Program.
You better hurry if you want to participate. From the looks of it, there are only a handful of North Korean families left who you can pay to turn off their lights for you.
I don’t do anything ordered by the WWF or the 1001 club or whatever their coke fuelled party is calling themselves these days.
In Kim Jong Il’s N. Korea, they mix Green ideals with Red Management to produce Brown Energy.
I would like to invite everyone to join in a global celebration of life on March 27 at 8:30 P.M.
Mankind outshines all other living beings on Earth. We have conquered the elements and by means of reason and changed our surroundings to suit our means, rather than the other way around.
No other human invention symbolizes that better than the light bulb, which rendered darkness into light, an extraordinary symbol for the age of enlightenment.
Reason has allowed us to shine our light of consciousness in every nook and corner of the universe, allowing us to expand our knowledge far beyond our immediate environment and has brought us unprecedented prosperity and civilization.
This is worth celebrating! Celebrate human life and our extraordinary achievements by turning on all light bulbs for one hour at March 27 at 8:30 P.M. Let the lights of reason shine to enlighten the world!
Also become a fan of Life Hour on Facebook. Spread the light! Invite all your friends to join!
“Jeremy (11:01:49) :
More seriously – Earth Hour is clearly just another facet of the new green gaia religion. Imagine in 100 years people may not join together and celebrate Xmas anymore – they will join together and switch off the lights and power – ritual festivities may involve the sacrificial destruction of machines – perhaps by then we will live like Amish – no machines at all…back to a horse and cart.”
Oh Jeremy, what’s this 100 years you are talking about? They already did this in Afghanistan under the Taleban. Televisions were strung up like hanged criminals because the Taleban said that Shaitan lived inside them. It was a very low carbon economy too with most infrastructure, electricity and communications destroyed. Opium production was their main source of revenue and produces a product enjoyed by lefty activists worldwide. If Afghanistan was part of the global carbon credits market they could have become the richest state in the world with the amount of credits they could sell.
Hilarious! LOL. All right North Korea! I’ll keep my lights on all day, that should negate their Earth Day contribution.
Brent in Calgary
I’m sure Kim Jong-il was all over Earth Hour. The WWF has a friend in him. Maybe they can get Bamir TOPI of Albania, Omar Hassan al-Bashir of the Sudan, and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe next.
“It also reminds me that if we could get our hands on North Korean surface temperature records, we’d be able to get a minimally UHI polluted signal. – Anthony”
I don’t know, UHI should mostly be caused by tarmac and houses and only slightly by the wattage wasted; this is small compared to the insolation that heats up the tarmac. So what you would want is a very thinly populated country; Monolia or Kasachstan come to mind. Kasachstan is as big as today’s EU but has only as much inhabitants as Eastern Germany (14 million or so). It’s a huge steppe.
Again we see that the third world leads the way in energy
conservation. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Not
until we destroy the trappings of our capitalist chains and
embrace the winds of revolution will we truly be free!!!
Must not have been able to get that nuclear plant going.
North Korea is a fine example of what happens when those who wrap themselves in a cloak of morality gaze upon the huddled masses and determine that those who disagree with them are defective by way of intelligence or upbringing, and so must be neutralized and controlled by the state for the benefit of the greater whole.
I hope Ravetz and Lakoff et al are paying attention.
My heart goes out to the people of North Korea whose defectors number one reason for escaping the country is hunger.
I guess this goes without saying but that map is a classic illustration of the success of capitalism vs the dismal failure of socialism.
Steve Goddard (11:15:52) :
“North Korea has universal health care, but not universal electricity.”
If there is no electricity 12 hours a day then one doesn’t have agonize over whether to ‘pull the plug’ on life support equipment.
I happened to be visiting last night over the earth hour charade. We had just eaten and were sitting looking out over the city (Christchurch, New Zealand) the conversation nothing to do with environmentalism or anything remotely close to it. I quietly noted to myself the city lights and looked for some effect at 8:30. Since I noticed nothing then, I kept quiet and waited again to 9:30 to see any effect again. Still nothing, except for a red distress flair let off in the distance. I thought that appropriate – perhaps a sign of despair?
Christchurch was the first NZ city to fully embrace earth hour (I don’t think this nonsense deserves Caps). Apparently it is meant to make a meaningful difference to global warming, according to local minor celebrities. We are fully hydro generation for our electricity (and very minor wind).
Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney and now enjoys widespread support both from the public and big business, including Google, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.
This year, even users of ubiquitous Twitter and Facebook can show their support with special applications that turn their displays dark.
In December, two weeks of UN talks in Copenhagen failed to produce a binding commitment to limit global warming or set out concrete plans for doing so, in a setback for the environmental movement.
In Japan, the city of Hiroshima turned off the lights at 30 sites, including the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
The WWF-run event had officially begun nearly three hours earlier when New Zealand’s Chatham Islands switched off their diesel generators, leaving just 12 street lamps burning. It will eventually end in Samoa after nearly 24 hours.
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6991101/lights-out-across-asia-as-world-begins-earth-hour/
Communism, Obama’s vision for America.
Congratulations to Kim Il-Sung who is, even decades after his death, a bigger warrior for the ideals of environmentalism than Pelosi, Gore, Kerry, Obama, Chu, and Holdren combined. 😉
Didn’t know there was such a thing as earth hour so have lots of lights on, and electric heaters – I feel the cold these days and it is raining again and my old 1750 house is a bit damp (no damp proof course etc). Hope the EnviroPolice don’t get me … but maybe they should start in Oz with whoever sold all that coal to the Chinese (20m ton pa for 30 yrs was it?) to make electricity and CO2 with….
-Got to fire up my offical WUWT gasoline powered alarm clock…
makes about as much sense…
So, North Korea is in the dark?
Who knew?
🙂
If anyone wants a good economics primer I would heartily advocate for ‘Economics In One Lesson’ by Henry Hazlitt.With it,the layman will win any argument he will ever have about economic matters.If you don’t know how a Vampire reacts to Sunlight,show a copy to Paul Krugman.(Get the latest (1979) edition).
Is that map that heads this article drawn correctly? Korea is a peninsula so there shouldn’t be anything to the south east of South Korea but the dark ocean. How come there are numerous lights in a line about 20 miles ‘offshore’?
tonyb
What’s that little spot of light about half way up the left hand side of North Korea? North Korean protesters or just a group of pixels stuck on on my monitor?
REPLY: The capital, Pyongyang. Imperious leader Kim Jong-Il must have electric lights, the rest of the country can burn candles. – A
A few people have mentioned the WWF: All over Sky TV in the UK at the moment are ads for Sponsor an Acre:
http://www.skysponsoranacre.com/
Donate £3 plus per month to the coffers of the WWF and Sky will match it. The WWF will then “protect” an acre of Amazonian rainforest. Doesn’t say anything about whether the said acre was under threat in the first place, but then they are going to get easy marks anyway so why bother with details.
A bit OT, but over at this site here;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2010/03/-i-am-indebted-to.shtml
A suggestion from Brent Hargreaves is that if we are going into a new Maunder minimum, we should call it;
“THE GORE MINIMUM”
I like it!
Its 20.30 in UK— just switched the 500 watt Halogen outside lamp on to light the garden up for an hour . Fu….. green spin
What’s all the light off-shore? Ships on shoals of fish?
North Korea, as we all know, is a sad desperate country.
Enforcing the rigid party line results in almost universal misery and famine, except, of course, for the chosen few. Something similar always occurs in economies controlled by those spouting a fanatic philosophy, be they far left, far right or ultra religious. Next it could be climate fanatics – we are dangerously close to this already.
Kind of like what Gore and Patchi are preaching and practicing right now – as they represent the self-appointed ‘chosen’ holding the ‘torch of enlightenment’, so there is obviously no need for them to suffer the indignities of energy poverty, which they are insisting everyone else should be prepared to suffer.
The analogy provided by North Korea is, of course, extreme, but it is a warning to us all. A goofy, rigid, flawed doctrine which tolerates no criticism is what AGW is all about.
Thank God Sumi Jo was born in South Korea and not the North. There was plenty of electricity there to help her have time to develop in her talent.
O Mio Babbino Caro
Lucia di Lammermoor – Mad Scene (excellent!)
Il Bacio
Der holle rache – Queen of night
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
How much waste of human life is happening in North Korea, and in Africa? That is a cause that should be concerned over—not global warming!!
Even Catlin’s warbler sings a sad song for the people of North Korea.
This is the best illustration to highlight what we may be facing to some of the naive believers who follow wicked Greens. Now, what if North Korea had wind turbines and solar power? Maybe be more glitter, but not as much as South Korea and the north experiences more cold.
kwik (13:37:02) :
The Gore minimum. NO!
The minimum has already been named, if it occurs, after someone who deserves to be remembered. Jack Eddy.
It will be the Eddy minimum.
DaveE.
Life hour (11:35:34) :
I’ll check you out on FB, and would love to repost this, if you don’t mind?
Looks like the North has as many light bulbs as nukes. Funny people in charge of the NKPDR; you’d think by now there would have been at least one palace coups. The Great Kingdom Of the North will soon fall, I predict; understand it’s going to be blamed on excessive inbreeding by the royalty and the military officer corps –no new, fresh blood in 60 years. But… I do like their misplaced committment to Global “Warming”, amazing what people can do if someone’s holding a gun to their heads.
Earth what?
I suspect the benificent North Korean government has told all its people that 8:30 pm. is past their bedtime.
———-
Juraj V. (11:01:45) :
“Low carbon economy, equal distribution of wealth,”
“Wealth?” Which wealth are you talking about?
“In Kim Jong Il’s N. Korea, they mix Green ideals with Red Management to produce Brown Energy.”
rbateman: What a talent for words.
Also from the Alan Caruba link:
Much of Africa is in darkness. too.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Ross McKitrick on coal powered electricity for Africa and SE Asia:
…….development of large scale power generation and electricity grids. And I think the sooner the better.
Steve Schaper (13:40:29) :
What’s all the light off-shore? Ships on shoals of fish?
I think its fishing boats.
artwest,
I read somewhere that this WWF’ protected zone’ is in the north of Brazil and is not under any particular threat. Still, we can’t let the facts get in the way of a fund raising wheeze can we?
Me too last year! I lit my house up and was attacked with eggs during “Earth Hour.”
My inner-astronomer is deh conflict, off to steal a sirloin from THE MAN
(Cave Optical joke here)
kwik (13:37:02) :
> “THE GORE MINIMUM”
> I like it!
I like it too, except that it could be the only thing Gore is remembered for.
As noted by David Alan Evans, the Eddy Minimum is a far better name and for someone who deserves it. However, there is no official name, as far as I know.
See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/online-petition-the-next-solar-minimum-should-be-called-the-eddy-minimum/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/11/jack-eddy-discoverer-of-the-maunder-minimum-and-lia-1932-2009/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/22/wuwt-poll-what-should-we-call-the-current-solar-minimum/
F. Ross (13:18:53) :
What’s that little spot of light about half way up the left hand side of North Korea? North Korean protesters or just a group of pixels stuck on on my monitor?
REPLY: The capital, Pyongyang. Imperious leader Kim Jong-Il must have electric lights, the rest of the country can burn candles. – A
Pyongyang is a show city, while the rest of the country starves Pyongyang has to look its best, saving face is important in korean culture.
Amino Acids in Meteorites (13:45:52) :
Agree with all that!
Sumi Jo: well she can certainly sing, but she isn’t the fat lady.:)
“David Alan Evans (13:51:15) :
kwik (13:37:02) :
The Gore minimum. NO!
The minimum has already been named, if it occurs, after someone who deserves to be remembered. Jack Eddy.”
I second that.
“Amino Acids in Meteorites (13:45:52) :
Thank God Sumi Jo was born in South Korea and not the North. There […]
”
Awesome, Amino, thanks for posting!
Thats the way they want us to be, the idiotic people who have swallowed AGW. Like North Korea, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Afghanistan etc.
They should be all packed off to live in these countries – their Earthly paradises
…..more coal-fired plants, nuclear plants, and other generators of electricity….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Dr. Robert Balling, Arizona State University, on the reality of using fossil fuels:
Saving the world because you eat organic or change a light bulb?
“….they don’t seem to understand 5th grade mathematics…..”
Looking next door to China, North Korea’s communist neighbour it looks like they are not doing too bad judging by all those lights. That’s what happens when you go for the low fat, diet, caffeine free version of communism and not the hard core version of North Korea. Despite all the bad press China gets from the warmers they are now the top inverters in renewable energy http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8587319.stm I wonder are people afraid of climate change or are they afraid of what it means if the poor of the world get a chance to compete with us.
On the other end of the scale you could say that the poorest African countries which also appear dark are that way because of a lack of a strong government and institutions which north Korea suffers from a surplus of. As always the answer is somewhere in the middle and i am glad i live there.
One headline in New Zealand reads:
“Earth Hour draws fewer Kiwis”.
“Fewer New Zealanders switched off their lights for Earth Hour last night than last year.
National power grid operator Transpower reported power consumption was down 2 percent for the World Wide Fund for Nature-sponsored climate change awareness event, compared to the 3.5 percent savings recorded last year. ”
For the rest see http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3517903/Earth-Hour-draws-fewer-Kiwis
That’s a 40% decline in participation over last year !
Hehe… North Korea reminds me of Cuba. I flew over Cuba on the way to Argentina a few years ago and it was nearly as dark down there…. LOL
Socialism can be seen from up here on the Moon. For Earth hour we need to go to the far side to get any difference.
In Finland an OAP was run over by a motorcycle and died. The driver did not see the man because the street lights had been switched off because of Earth Hour.
I think they’ll let the lights on next year.
If anybody wants to plot them, these are the demand figures for the UK Grid from 20:00GMT to 2200GMT – Demand in MW. Half an hour either side so you can see there is no significant change in the rate of change as demand falls through the evening. No sign of any effect on demand around either 2030hr or 2130hr. In short, Earth Hour was a total non-event in the UK (as well…)
20.00 40065
20.05 40120
20.10 40085
20.15 39873
20.20 39657
20.25 39393
20.30 39125
20.35 38806
20.40 38626
20.45 38313
20.50 38006
20.55 37748
21.00 37554
21.05 37451
21.10 37071
21.15 36808
21.20 36703
21.25 36447
21.30 36182
21.35 35891
21.40 35675
21.45 35435
21.50 35330
21.55 35139
22.00 34925
REPLY: Here it is plotted, Anthony
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/earth_hour_uk-2010.png
Socialism is equal distribution of poverty, capitalism is an uneven distribution of wealth.
FYI, Pyongyang was the only capital of communistic state, ever taken by Western armies during the Cold war.
Richard Heg (14:45:07) :
Looking next door to China, North Korea’s communist neighbour it looks like they are not doing too bad judging by all those lights. That’s what happens when you go for the low fat, diet, caffeine free version of communism and not the hard core version of North Korea. Despite all the bad press China gets from the warmers they are now the top inverters in renewable energy http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8587319.stm I wonder are people afraid of climate change or are they afraid of what it means if the poor of the world get a chance to compete with us.
On the other end of the scale you could say that the poorest African countries which also appear dark are that way because of a lack of a strong government and institutions which north Korea suffers from a surplus of. As always the answer is somewhere in the middle and i am glad i live there>>
China is also growing their coal power faster than anyone and next to it their “green” stuff is miniscule. They are also number one in executions by gross count or per capita, take your pick. As for Africa, make a list and see how many of them are NOT dictatorships, so don’t give me any malarky about lack of strong government, you can’t get any stronger than that.
I would LOVE the 3rd world to get on their feet and compete. A larger global economy is good for all. The notion that one country’s growth can only come at the expense of another is ridiculous.
“Luboš Motl (12:56:57) :
Congratulations to Kim Il-Sung who is, even decades after his death, a bigger warrior for the ideals of environmentalism than Pelosi, Gore, Kerry, Obama, Chu, and Holdren combined. !
You are right, but they are trying hard to catch up.
As a keen amateur astronomer I support the idea of an earth hour. I wish they’d take it further and turn off all the street lights. Can’t we have just one night a year when we get rid of all the light pollution so people can see the sheer awesomeness of the stars.
“It also reminds me that if we could get our hands on North Korean surface temperature records, we’d be able to get a minimally UHI polluted signal.”
?
Forgive me, but isn’t UHI affected by more than just electric lights? Although I too would be fascinated to see NK’s official temperature records; always sunny and prosperous…
😉
My little anti-AGW campaign: http://zi.fi/earthhour
Hahahah, hilarious 🙂
Pace Nobel Prize for Kim Jong-il!
It’s all about Waste Management.
In Kim’s case, He is the only one allowed to waste energy.
In China’s case, they put all energy into making things, then dump the waste all over the place (they didn’t invent planned spillage as that honor goes to the Soviets).
In the Green’s case, they want to lay waste to all Energy period.
Pick up your free candle with every $50 donation.
No lie, North Korea is what the environmentalists want the U.S. to turn into. You see to them lack of food, water and technical innovation would make everyone equally poor and starving. That would be good for the planet since we humans are nothing but a plague.
David Alan Evans (13:51:15) :
“The Gore minimum. NO!”
Come on! Dont you see the irony of it? Imagine 1000 years ahead…..
They will remember the AGW scare, and that the top AGW guru was named after the Minimum arrived and killed the AGW scare…..it will be good.
@Amino Acids in Meteorites (14:41:37) :
Saving the world because you eat organic or change a light bulb?
I’m always amused by a PSA I hear on the radio in which a little girl is admonished because she leaves her cell phone charger plugged into the wall even when the phone isn’t charging. The charger is still drawing a little power it seems, and we’re supposed to be convinced that unplugging it when not in use would make a significant difference to overall energy consumption.
What can I say? I always find myself opposed to that which makes the lights go out all over Europe.
Here in New Zealand, use of electricity declined by 2% during Earth Hour. Last year, it reduced by 3.5%. The possible explanations for this are quite interesting. Is it because of less support? Or is it because of those objecting to the whole thing switching on all their lights and appliances? Possibly there was a rugby game on and NZ doesn’t want to miss rugby.
But WWF publicity will, we know, focus on the emblematic locations where the power went off – our very own Sky Tower in Auckland – just like the Opera House in Sydney. And then how will WWF interpret the Sky Tower message? Is there even a message to interpret?
Alan
So its time for Earth Hour, that let’s all feel good but do nothing fund raising campaign for the multi billion dollar World Wildlife Federation.
A great con job, with tons of free advertising by all the wannbe green to go along media.
“It invites people to become sanctimonious do-gooders by turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in service of some
ill-understood abstract concept of “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of electricity. People who want to do without electricity in service of some symbolic solidarity with nature should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour.
And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too”
http://tinyurl.com/ygjqwq3
Read the whole thing and turn on every frik’n light.
Jarmo (14:58:12) :
How do you know the lack of light caused the motorcycle to run over the person? If that is true, then there must be a lot of people killed by motorists during blackouts and brownouts.
Safety is not something that works simply by devices.
It takes two travellers to make it work:
The person on the ground needs to pay attention to what is going on about them and the person in the vehicle needs to pay attention for pedestrians.
If you want fatality case examples of such findings on real saftey, try msha.gov and check out the fatalgrams.
You cannot rely solely upon dumb devices to protect lives.
South Africa’s finance Minister won’t celebrate Earth Hour!
South Africa still hooked on coal, and plans to stay that way | VentureBeat
South Africa’s economy has grown by two-thirds since 1994 and its demand for electricity has kept pace. But, despite near-perfect wind conditions, its minister of finance, Pravhin Gordhan, has decided to keep coal at the heart of the country’s energy policy.
Here’s his logic:
1. Local coal resources are abundant and cheap.
2. Coal plants can be built faster and require less maintenance than nuclear reactors.
3. Brownouts are not an option in South Africa. (When energy demand exceeds supply in the U.S., the lights dim — when it happens in Africa, thousands may go without clean water or safe food).
4. Five other countries rely on South Africa for electricity. Failing to meet this demand could send these satellites deeper into poverty, and strain relations.
5. Coal keeps South African miners employed. The industry accounts for 18 percent of the country’s GDP.
Five arguments for a celebration me thinks!
http://green.venturebeat.com/2010/03/24/south-africa-still-hooked-on-coal-and-plans-to-stay-that-way/
TonyB (13:14:48) :
How come there are numerous lights in a line about 20 miles ‘offshore’?
Fishing boats — thousands of them.
How is the health care system in N. Korea?
I have a dear elderly aunt who makes an annual missionary trip to Liberia, has done so for awhile now. Given her health at her age with the ER admissions over the past few years, for the last time I was saying how she was trying for her African martyrdom. As we help out our “sister church” at the village she goes to, at the church they hold drives to gather items to send, try to get a shipping container’s worth sent over.
Several years ago, it was computers. Let’s help them get into the modern age. Gathered, sent, delivered. First one they tried hooking up to the generator, got smoked. They are stored there now “until they get the power issue sorted out.” Oh, the generator does work good for electric sewing machines, etc.
A few years ago, bicycles. Good old durable bicycles, reliable transportation, a shop volunteered to fix them up as needed.
Last time, candles. Power for only one hour a day when they ran the generator, no lights at night. And she took anything, any type of candle, even old paraffin canning wax (box says you can make candles with it). My mother used to make decorative candles, we had a bunch still around, fancy shapes you knew would leave lots of leftover wax. Toss ’em in the box. Mom was worrying (as a former proper candlemaker) about using canning wax. I pointed out, with my aunt agreeing, they were likely making candles with yarn for wicks. They needed light, however possible.
However, I pointed out to my aunt they should be sending a few boxes of those cheap solar LED walkway lights. Leave them out in the day, then just pick the heads off their plastic tubes and bring them inside at night for hours of light. Every couple of years you change the rechargeable battery, otherwise it’s free efficient light without worries.
As she continues teetering leftward with age, becoming oh-so socially and environmentally aware… Looked like I nearly made her physically ill with revulsion as I dared to suggest contaminating such a peaceful sharing natural community with vile modern technology. Replace natural candles with technology using toxic chemicals? How shocking!
One hour with the lights off??
How about pulling the main breaker, and having all clocks flashing (12:00), to increase the “misery”.
Ironically they don’t have enough oil or coal to use for generating electricity, and no body, not even the insane greenies, wants to allow them to have nuclear power plants.
But now that they might have a nuclear bomb or two, they’re allow to keep those, and maybe a few more if they really insist, but like no more’an that, right, mkey.
The ironic point being that if they had built a nuclear power plant instead of seeking bigger bangs, everyone had rushed to try and take it off line.
R Shearer (16:24:22) :
How is the health care system in N. Korea?
Anyone who stays in that country eventually dies. It’s that bad.
John R. Walker (15:10:31) :
If anybody wants to plot them, these are the demand figures for the UK Grid from 20:00GMT to 2200GMT
REPLY: Here it is plotted, Anthony
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/earth_hour_uk-2010.png
————————————————————
That’s strange. At 2030 the steady demand decline (almost) stopped. I wonder if that is typical for a Saturday evening ? Unfortunately I don’t know where to go to find out. Be interesting to know if this was businessas usual, or millions of people raising two fingers ( = a middle finger to you guys on the left of the pond) to the believers.
kadaka
Looked like I nearly made her physically ill with revulsion as I dared to suggest contaminating such a peaceful sharing natural community with vile modern technology. Replace natural candles with technology using toxic chemicals? How shocking>>
I came across this once before. I took the line that candles produce CO2 and the garden lamp things didn’t. What ever works….
Did they figure out the generator problem? Most likely it is old and has poor power conditioning so it throws voltage spikes left right and centre. The sewing machine motor will survive, but any electronics… poof! Some cheap UPS with a small in line battery ought to do the trick, and when they aren’t using it for a computer they can take the charged unit inside and plug a small lamp into it for light…. uhm, non CO2 producing light of course, better make that clear. just don’t mention what the generator runs on…
Anyone here living in Washington DC ?
Could you please run around during earth hour taking pictures of all the landmark buildings, Whitehouse, Pentagon, etc… I’d like to see if they too will be observing the hour of greenery and shutting down all security lighting surrounding the areas.
I’m willing to bet 5 carbon credits that they don’t.
That looks a lot like the Google map of North Korea except it’s white with a blue surround.
“Anyone here living in Washington DC ? Could you please run around during earth hour taking pictures of all the landmark buildings, Whitehouse, Pentagon, etc… I’d like to see if they too will be observing the hour of greenery and shutting down all security lighting surrounding the areas.”
Better yet, take a few pics of Al Gore’s mansion.
davidmhoffer (16:51:38) :
Quick reply. I originally suggested an inverter, since they have running vehicles with car batteries. Not well received. Of course, for all I know they might have had the 115/230V switch flipped the wrong way. What’s standard line voltage in Liberia? Is there such a thing?
Maintenance was mentioned as an issue with generator, etc. I suggested a solar panel (like the 12V “car recharging” ones), car battery, and inverter setup. Virtually no maintenance as these days the units are throwaways, they normally don’t bother to try and fix them, cheaper to replace.
kadaka
Some cheap UPS with a small in line battery ought to do the trick>>
Just to make myself clear in case you are going to try and do this… there are different kinds of UPS, and I haven’t been in the market for a while so this may be obsolete:
Some UPS pass the power straight through and switch over to battery when the power fails. They usually have some power conditioning capability of their own, but it would be inadequat for an old poorly maintained generator. What you are looking for is a UPS that charges the battery and then feeds from the battery to the AC outlet all the time. Any voltage spikes then get soaked up by the battery and the AC outlet doesn’t pass them through to the computer.
Tronic (15:24:49) :
My little anti-AGW campaign: http://zi.fi/earthhour
——————-
Reply:
Umm… Can you shed a little more light on that?
kadaka (16:32:08) :
On the back of every computer power supply is a red switch. Off the shelf it’s set to 110/115 for N. America, 220/235 for the rest of the world.
Running 220 vac into any 110 device will smoke it in short order.
Betcha nobody paid any nevermind to the little red switch.
I was so busy running around turning all my lights on in my house and flipping floodlights on at my house, I did not have time to comment here.
8:30 EST here we go….
I forgot my car lights…..let me go make that adjustment….
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Can you be more specific? I think the entire story is on the website.
Well, I’ve got most of the lights turned on in my house. I’m having the dickens of a time forcing myself not to turn them off as I jump up periodically from WUWT to do chores. I’m so used to following my kids around turning the lights off it’s become a conditioned response. However, not living in the semi-darkness for once reminds me of my distant childhood (back in the ’60s) when people used to go to bed at night without bothering to turn off the lights in the house. What a different era it was… so optimistic (not that I entirely recall this, but I fully remember the environmental doom and gloom of the 70s). I wish the forces and voices of environmental fascism would be rendered deaf, dumb and blind for a week so the rest of us could just get on with living.
@RockyRoad: Argh… I didn’t get the pun at first reading. Well put 😀
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
Someone should save above because they ALWAYS adjust down when this happens. History in the making (as far as AGW is concerned). also dmi ice
I specified a week in my last comment meaning to add “so we could see what if felt like”, an to indicate that I don’t have genocidal urges. I’ve often felt that so-called Catholic guilt has nothing on the guilt-trips environmentalists lay on ordinary individuals for the crimes of existing, with all the ordinary activities that entails, and for reproducing. I’m also of the opinion that all of these feel-good measures, like sorting and recycling and now having to do laundry etc at night and thus having to stay up late (before going to work the next morning) so as to avoid paying premium electricity prices are anti-women. In my experience, it’s the woman of the household who goes through the recycling to make sure everything is binned properly. Somehow my sons never seem to learn where the stuff goes, and my husband deliberate sabotages the waste as he disagrees with the whole program. I imagine I’ve just raised a few hackles with my stereotyping – but many women of my acquaintance agree.
What a bunch of wimpy Greens! “Earth Hour.” Ha!
They need to show us how sincere they are: make it an “Earth Week” without electricity.
Even an “Earth 72 hours.” Then they’ll appreciate the electricity that they take for granted… the few who could stand going 3 days without it.
I see my neighbour is celebrating Earth Hour. Oh, he’s not home and the 150 Watt spot light is still on.
It’s 15 minutes til the end of Earth Hour and I haven’t told my wife. TV, computer and a couple lights going.
Oh, oh, I might be arrested by the climate pigs.
This is not a confession! Honest I was just kidding!
“Smokey (18:02:57) :
What a bunch of wimpy Greens! “Earth Hour.” Ha!
They need to show us how sincere they are: make it an “Earth Week” without electricity.”
Smokey, check my comment on the other Earth Hour thread (the one about California) – there IS an Earth Week and it’s around the 22.April (Earth Day).
oops! Forgot to turn on the dryer! I’ve got fantasies of WUWT search-lights a la Batman that we could turn on to celebrate this one hour of the year. Must get back to the laundry now.
A humble confession. Every Saturday night from 8 to 9PM I watch my favorite TV show, Legend of the Seeker. I know, you can laugh all you want, but I like it. And I’m going to watch it again tonight, Earth Hour or no.
PS — I heard a rumor, that I cannot confirm, that Legend of the Seeker is also Kim Jong Il’s favorite show. He probably has TiVo, though, and can watch it whenever he wants.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
It’s 8:30 MST; turned on my 10kW arc lamp. Who says you can’t generate power from photo voltaics at night?
The lights get dimmed for 1 hour.The operators stay dim 24/7
I may rent one of those portable search lights you see at movie premiers and store grand openings and run it in front of my house during “earth hour”.
It would be worth it to get under the skin of these pompous self righteous AGW idiots.
If you could ask plants whether they like more CO2 or not they will say that more CO2 please.
These greenie weenie town dwellers believe that plants eat buffalo chicken wings.
So the WWF chose 8:30pm because that’s when power use goes down anyway and they could prove people really do care about Earth Hour from the drop in use shown on graphs?
That’s kinda like saying an ice age is coming when it’s been cold a few years. Or that global warming is coming because Arctic ice gets carried away in currents.
I remember as a young soldier fresh out of Korean Language School flying into K-14 airfield (Later Kimpo International Airport) in Sep 1966. As we were letting down into the airfield I noticed how very few lights were visible. Driving into Seoul on a poorly maintained dirt road with still visible war damage around I was wondering what I had gotten into.
My 13 month tour was spent on a mountain top in the Han River estuary where we could see clearly into North Korea and watch the flares go up at night and the occasional rifle, machine gun, and mortar fire. More of my Army mates were killed in Korea during 1966-1969 than in Vietnam. Several ground attacks along the DMZ involving more than 16 casualties and then in April 1969 the North Koreans shot down an EC-121 91 nm off the coast and that killed 39 US Navy personnel, including 14 of my friends.
At any rate when I went back to Korea for a second tour in 1975-76 things were humming and now South Korea is a beehive of activity. Always makes me wonder why anyone espouses having a highly managed economy. Oh well.
Cheers,
John
The Ontario power use is interesting where it seems like everyone tried to get things done before 8:30 – which caused more power to be used overall.
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/siteShared/demand_price.asp?sid=ic
This just shows how little electricity incandescent bulbs use for homes.
If we as a society want to save power we need to change over street lights and parking lot lights to L.E.D.s … don’t worry It won’t happen soon.
Tim
“Celebrate Electricity and our species ability to make us of it for constructive positive outcomes! Celebrate the ingenuity of humans to generate and distribute electricity to raise people out of the muck into modern civilization. Yes, use energy wisely and within your means but don’t turn out the lights to human progress or retard the advancement of civilization out of the dark and bronze ages. [:)]” – pwl, Earth Hour, 2010
I wonder if a proxy can be extracted from baby birthing 9 months after earth hour ? Green proxy babies with new age names…would be my guess.
Imagine living under such tyranny as there must be in North Korea. Mankind is capable of such horror. If only all men were as concerned about the welfare of others as they are of their own.
Douglas DC (13:05:32) :
-Got to fire up my official WUWT gasoline powered alarm clock…
OOH, Do want!
I’m going to celebrate Earth Day (night) after I go to bed!
John Stover (20:08:59) : Just wanted to thank you for your efforts in the defense of my freedom !! Top marks !! I salute you !!
Yesterday, Fidel Castro lauded left-wing Democrats for passing ObamaCare (see: http://libertarianromanticideal.com/uncategorized/cuba-proud-democratic-health-care-reform/). Today, North Korea is the most earth friendly nation on the planet.
I Can’t wait for what tomorrow may bring!
CBS TV News in New York just reported a billion people took part in Earth Hour while showing a backdrop of a very well lit NYC.
Pat Moffitt (21:44:23) :
Yes, and lots of images of people holding lit candles.
The backdrop of a well-lit city is par for the Utility Co. course.
They make money off of all residents through the Street Lighting Act, which has been around since the 1910’s. It’s figured into your bill, and they are not about to turn that stuff off. It’s hardwired. There is no separate circuit.
How come there are numerous lights in a line about 20 miles ‘offshore’?
SQUID fishing. It’s done at night and uses the brightest lights one can imagine.
A squid fleet has much more glow at a distance than a city. Not because there is more lighting as such, but because the lack of walls and roofs and reflection off the water means it gets beamed at almost 100%.
David Segesta:
“I guess this goes without saying but that map is a classic illustration of the success of capitalism vs the dismal failure of socialism.”
Just scroll up and you’ll see another “socialist” country, China, which should render your comment a bit questionable.
P.S.
There’s a big difference between socialism and social democracy, btw, the former being the favorite straw man used in U.S. political discussions and the latter probably being closer to the ideas that democrats/Obama are trying to push.
harrywr2 (12:16:23) :
Steve Goddard (11:15:52) :
“North Korea has universal health care, but not universal electricity.”
If there is no electricity 12 hours a day then one doesn’t have agonize over whether to ‘pull the plug’ on life support equipment.
———————————————————–
…. And North Korea really does have Death Panels.
Yes, I know that earth hour is symbolic, but as a measure of effectiveness, it is virtually worthless and is a red herring. Earth hour demonstrates the hypocrisy of the warmists. They are demanding action against climate change, but most are not doing anything of any substance to reduce their own emissions. The math says earth hour is a joke, in terms of energy savings. There are 8,766 hours in a year. Cutting your lights for one hour per year is only 0.0114% of the total hours in a year. What about the other 99.9886% of the time? The average energy savings for a residence that observes earth hour is less than the annual energy consumed by a single neon pilot lamp built into an illuminated light switch. Why aren’t the organizers of earth hour encouraging persons to make an effort to reduce their electricity usage by 10% to 20% on an ongoing basis? Perhaps they are too busy rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the riches that will be reaped onto them in the future with their carbon trading schemes?
@Mikael Lönnroth (22:23:22) :
P.S.
There’s a big difference between socialism and social democracy, btw, the former being the favorite straw man used in U.S. political discussions and the latter probably being closer to the ideas that democrats/Obama are trying to push.
– – – – – –
Pls. explain the difference between socialism and social democracy. Don’t both use the same methods, i.e. taxing the wealth of persons who earned it and transferring a portion of that wealth to persons who did not earn it? BTW, the USA is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic.
Re: davidmhoffer (17:13:20) and rbateman (17:27:36)
Looks like we went right by each other in the moderation fog. 😉 Hope I addressed enough of you concerns in kadaka (17:13:18).
If you’re going for durability over absolute efficiency, you can’t beat an inverter running off a car battery. Add in a battery charger and call it a UPS. Deep cycle would be better, and sure, we have better sealed units, like the ones used for home-based “renewable” power, but both of those types can be rather heavy and there is that shipping issue… Once you have that system, you can charge the battery off a running vehicle with jumper cables or just some electrical wire that’s large enough. However they also sell the mentioned inexpensive “battery charging” 12V solar panels that simply plug into the cigar lighter, excuse me, the “power” outlet. After a quick trip to either an electronics or auto parts store for a “wire to outlet” hookup for the final connection (if you don’t want to cut off the plug end which might have electrical stuff inside), you have about the lowest-maintenance most trouble-free system you can get, suitable for third-world use or in your own backyard. Just keep the inverter from getting wet and you should be fine.
Mikael Lönnroth (22:23:22) :
(…)
P.S.
There’s a big difference between socialism and social democracy, btw, the former being the favorite straw man used in U.S. political discussions and the latter probably being closer to the ideas that democrats/Obama are trying to push.
Today’s Republicans are similar to Kennedy-era Democrats, while the current administration and allies are a good deal further left…
However, while Googling around for those specific terms you used, I found something that is making my brain lock up and shut down for self preservation.
Will someone please confirm the following is a joke? The overwhelming contradictions are about to make my head explode!
Oh no, I couldn’t resist. I clicked on the “Platform” link, read their environmental goals and plans. The WWF should be very happy with that part of their agenda.
Please, someone show me why that site is not to be taken seriously!
Mikael Lönnroth (22:23:22) :
P.S.
There’s a big difference between socialism and social democracy, btw, the former being the favorite straw man used in U.S. political discussions and the latter probably being closer to the ideas that democrats/Obama are trying to push.
Lenin’s party, pre-revolution, was the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The Bolsheviks (majorityists) and the Mensheviks (minorityists) were just rival factions.
By the way, Hitler’s party was the National Socialist Worker’s Party of Germany. Pick the bones out of that. John Ray of Greenie Watch wrote a good essay arguing that Hitler was a Socialist.
I am waiting for the “Green” team to jump all over Christmas lighting and try to force people not to celebrate the hoilday as all that extra cooking and extra lighting must drive them crazy.
Wife loves decorating the house and all the extra baking.
Even if the entire world switch of all the fossil fuels and all the pollutants, and if the entire world stop deforestation, if the entire world stop using chemicals for food production, house cleaning, washing, etc, the greenhouse effect and planet warming will not go away. The whole lot is now in a self-destruct mode, and it will take hundreds of years to recover. Me think.
Bamboric.
tonyb: those are fishing fleets and stuff
me being a college student we the boarders of hall 9 in the national institute of technology durgapur,india observed earth hour by switching off all electronic appliances between 8:30 to 9:30 pm IST.
View from the Solent (16:50:47) :
That’s strange. At 2030 the steady demand decline (almost) stopped. I wonder if that is typical for a Saturday evening ?
They can’t account for the decline, and I think that’s a travesty.
The World Wildlife Fund’s poster child is North Korea…
Of course Hitler was a socialist – so was Mussolini. Facism (National Socialism) is a left-wing doctrine, believing as it does in centralistation – the power of the state over the inddividual. the British National Party is a left-wing organisation. Mussolini spoke in Soho Square, London at the Scoialist International of 1912 iirc, and that was a Soviet-led meeting.
Re IK poiwer usages last night:
“That’s strange. At 2030 the steady demand decline (almost) stopped. I wonder if that is typical for a Saturday evening ?”
I would guess it’s typical. Working class people eat early but many middle class people would be cooking at that hour – I was; also some having just got back to the pub and some before going out! And many more sitting down to prime time telly – esp if there was “Match of the Day” or some other big Sky Sports fixture showing. After that some go to to bed early – others go out on the town, so it’;s lights off (though like many singletons I tend to leave lights on esp when I’m out – for the burglars, or for anyone who follows me home. Or I did in London; it’s not such an issue in the country
I’m probably very unusual on here in having spent much of my early life living as the Warmists would like us to, on various Mediterranean islands or in the S of France, with no running water nor electricity, and no car. By the time I was farming in Tuscany we had the luxury of 1KW which came across the hills on a rickety line festoooned on poles: to use the washing machine we had to turn off the freezer. And all the water from the washing machine was channelled down into the veg garden in a system of buckets and runnells. I didn’t learn to drive til I was 40 when I returned to England. I’ve always bought 2nd hand, used every scrap of food (I was born in the days of rationing) and mended rather than thrown out stuff. So my carbon footprint has been mnimal (and I was an ‘environmentalist’ in the late 1960s, before it was any kind of fashion).
One thing I can tell you is, unless you have servants, living like that is a full-time job and leaves you neither energy nor time for art, writing, social life etc – and you’re too damn tired anyway for much besides the basics of living esp in winter. It’s tiring and fairly soul-destroying after a few years, even in a warm climate; in a colder climate it would be pretty hellish.
Man did not rise above the brute until he started to harness energy through technology. At that point, the ‘elite’ began to emply servants… or those lower in the pecking order of the tribe did the manual work. Go figure.
We had the Earth Hour Poster plastered all over the workplace – “See the Light, Switch Off”, is the punchline. I kid you not.
Now if that ain’t a religious statement….
I did my best, turning all the lights on, not just to protest the fake green religion, but because even on my modest salary, light is an essential, not a luxury.
WWF should stick to wild life.
High-larious.
Earth Hour in North Korea a stunning success
Well, it definitely is a stunning success for at least one hour each year. Like a broken timepiece that correctly shows the time twice-a-day.
Bill Tuttle (16:22:57) :
TonyB (13:14:48) :
How come there are numerous lights in a line about 20 miles ‘offshore’?
Fishing boats — thousands of them.
Some of the lights may be fishing fleets but Ullung-Do Island is the main lights that you can see. Try a Google Earth.
By the way, Earth Hour Shanghai……..zada, zip, nothing, zero! Nobody knew about it !
That title and picture are funny !
It defines the link between killing capitalism and desires of the wacko greens.
Pete H (21:52:47) :
Bill Tuttle (16:22:57) :
TonyB (13:14:48) :
“How come there are numerous lights in a line about 20 miles ‘offshore’?”
“Fishing boats — thousands of them.”
Some of the lights may be fishing fleets but Ullung-Do Island is the main lights that you can see. Try a Google Earth.
Ullong-Do is just peeking up from the bottom-center of the pic, Pete. Look for the thin yellow outline.
The huge blob — the main lights — is a large concentration of boats. They extend mega-candlepower lights on outriggers and produce a much larger “footprint” when viewed from above. Or, rather, below, since what they’re trying to attract is below.
darthskywalker (06:26:57) :
me being a college student we the boarders of hall 9 in the national institute of technology durgapur,india observed earth hour by switching off all electronic appliances between 8:30 to 9:30 pm IST.
How did you know when it was time to turn them back on?
Any answer other than looking at the luminous dial of a stem-wound watch may make you want to think some more…