A couple of comments have mentioned the global “turn off your lights” night. Lubos Motl at the Reference Frame has a suggestion
Earth Hour: turn your lights on at 8 p.m.
Tonight, at 8 p.m. local time, you should turn on all the light bulbs you have for 60 minutes (it will only cost you 3 cents per light bulb in average for the whole hour) to fight global obscurantism. You should look how many lights are on around. Every light bulb you see will be a sign of the audacity of hope, as Jeremiah Wright would say.”15 years ago, I would have done this. Now, I plan to turn all my lights on as my silent form of protest against the likes of Gore and his Enron like carbon credit scheme. I’m going to “Watts Up” my house!
If you want to learn about the event, here is the web page:
Of course if you are simply interested in saving money and using less electricity (something I’m for, especially here in California since the state has hamstrung itself for future power generation) then get one of these:
I have several. They work great. And, buying one via this link sends some help back to me for keeping my www.surfacestations.org effort running.
An hour of darkness would be a fabulous gift to stargazers near urban areas everywhere. Too bad they’re doing it an hour too early.
I can’t help but feel we’d all be better off if that were the justification for everyone shutting their lights off rather than the pointless token action known as “earth hour”.
(BTW – “Earth Day” shares its calendar space with Lenin’s – as in Vladimir, not John – birthday . Coincidence?)
Here in Japan, it is Cherry Blossom season. The “Light Up” of cherry trees is at its peak. Take a look at:
http://gion-nawate.com/sakura/
http://gion-nawate.com/sakura/down.html
http://www.roppongihills.com/jp/events/sakuralightup2008.html
http://www.tachikawaonline.jp/local/sakura/image/23/17_chiyoda_yasukuni/5.jpg
http://junko55.web.infoseek.co.jp/04teien/DSC08331_1.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/44/135934263_74ce88e68b.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/245/449381086_34a5291fa5.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/1/121875241_b3bfcd8b6b.jpg
http://mari.cocolog-nifty.com/photos/uncategorized/004_208.jpg
http://mari.cocolog-nifty.com/photos/uncategorized/004_214.jpg
http://kobe-mari.maxs.jp/photo/tajima/kinosaki/yozakura/yozakura_004_s2.jpg
http://k-kabegami.sakura.ne.jp/himeji2/14.jpg
As you can see, here in Japan, there is no support for such initiative by the public. Lighting up with as many light bulbs to attract the public is the order of the day!
RICO Said:
“but I think the idea of juicing up the juice in such a self-defeating manner is crazy. Better to ignore the event entirely. To do otherwise is simply shooting yourself in the foot.”
I don’t know, Rico. If you can’t spend a dollar to lodge your protest, you can’t be very serious. Everyone’s an environmentalist one way or another, but to succumb to this type of nonsense is off the wall.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
To Rico:
By the way, if you think it’s wasteful to spend money in lighting our homes as a protest against all the insanity of AGW, perhaps you should consider how much money (and resources) you’re wasting on the various blogs you flit through each day!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
I once tried to have to have a conversation about AGW with my wifes son, who is an educated intelligent but very liberal type person.
After trying as best I could to intelligently present the evidence counter to AGW
he finally said “all the facts in the world can’t change the way I feel”.
That really says it all, emotion is way more important than facts for the
majority of homo sapiens. Why else is the humanity fairing so badly even in the 21st century.
Al Gore invented the internet. How can he possibly be wrong about AGW. 🙂
Andrew Blackburn (14:21:37) :
“(BTW – “Earth Day” shares its calendar space with Lenin’s – as in Vladimir, not John – birthday . Coincidence?)”
This is part of the reason why we refer to Greenies as ‘Watermellons’……. green on the outside and red on the inside.
It’s now 8pm in the central time zone and I just turned on as many lights as I could – at least one in each room.
I was just kidding you Anthony, I figured it wasn’t your house. The photo filename gave it away that it was a stock photo. However that might not have been obvious to others so thanks for pointing that out.
Heh, that’s exactly what I planned to do as soon as I heard about this ridiculous “earth hour” thing.
Makes me wish I had one of these.
A House? I assumed it was a rural weather station! I guess I should have known, because I couldn’t find a gas-grill anywhere in the picture.
I switched all our lights on at 8pm for 1 hour (We live in Brisbane, Australia)…..we were lit up like a Christmas tree in an otherwise darkened neighbourhood. I simply had to make some sort of protest after all the media hype surrounding the event – sadly our “free press” seems to have lost all objectivity regarding the AGW debate. Eco journalists (a paradox if ever I heard one) seem less like journalists and more like Cromwellian “Witchfinder Generals” with each passing day…..and I find myself approaching 50 suffering the same moral outrage as I felt as an idealistic student back in the late seventies!
For me the manner of the AGW debate has become almost more important than its outcome. The way in which debate has been stifled, scientists vilified, predictions favoured even in the face of hard evidence to the contrary is surely something all intelligent people should rail against, whichever side of this particular debate their sympathy lies. Earth hour to me is the epitome of this struggle.
I like to think that on such an occasion, light symbolises enlightenment and independent thought, whilst the dimmed streets represents ignorance and the herd mentality on which the peddlers of all dogma rely.
It was quite a shock to see how many sheep there are in my part of the world. I just hope that by the next time this stunt is pulled the data sets have become impossible for the media to ignore….or perhaps we should try and launch our own stunt – an “Enlightenment Hour” perhaps, where we celebrate the amazing achievements of mankind’s inquiring mind by switching on all the lights. I’m sure it would get publicity if only because of the moral outrage it would cause within the “herd”!
@Jeff
That’s right. The joke here is that filling stations do the tax collection for the government. In Germany for each liter there is 1) a fuel excise tax 2) ecology tax and 3) 19% value added tax. Interestingly, the value added tax is applied to the cost of the petrol + the fuel excise tax + the ecology tax. That’s right…even taxes are taxed!
In the end, 78% of the price of one litre is TAX alone.
Ted Longman
You’re absolutely right.
I’ve noticed it here too. Nobody can tell you what they pay for 1 kwh of juice. Yet, they all complain about the high energy prices.
It was quite a shock to see how many sheep there are in my part of the world.
Well, you do live in Australia . . .
(Actually I agree with what you have to say. I like the “Enlightenment Hour” idea.)
Getting back to the solar lights; we’ve used similar lights before ( different brand) . The problem is they don’t produce much light. They’re Ok as markers which delineate the edge of a path, but they aren’t bright enough to light up the path. Are these brighter than that?
Unternehmenssteuerfortenwicklungsgsetz, 38% of the worlds tax laws are German.
Solar doesn’t work well at all up here in the Pacific Northwest. I guess the sun angle is generally too shallow except at the height of summer.
According to at least one Chicago area news reader, “Chicago went dark last night in recognition of earth hour.”
The Chicago Sun-Times (aka the Chicago Scum-Times) reported the same thing and included a before and after photo. The “after” photo did indeed show two major buildings had turned off their “trademark” lights, but it also showed more people and/or buildings had actually turned on additional lighting! What a photo! If it’s on their website I’ll take it down and post it somewhere.
I haven’t seen any satellite photos posted anywhere, has anyone else?
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Came across your site for the first time today, very interesting discussion. Here in London, electricity is between 10p and 17p/kwh (about double that in US cents). Petrol works out at £4.86/gallon or more than USD10.
Expecting yet more “green” taxes soon, plastic shopping bags are the latest evil (but no-one seems to worry about plastic bin bags?). I like to see how many times “saving the planet” is used as a motive to raise taxes – how do they imagine they can buy their way out of this one?
The further irony is that after a point (which we are already after), raising taxes actually reduces revenues.
As a good liberal, I want to extract as much money out of the rich that I possibly can. As an empiricist, it is obvious to me that, in our current circumstances, by far the best way to do that is–cut taxes for the rich!
I actually went to the bother of tracking marginal tax and capital gains cuts year by year (2000 – 2006) in 2006 dollars and comparing them with federal revenues. The results were most illuminating.
If the greens actually mean what they say, they ought to be in favor of cutting taxes in order to get their money out of the resulting increased revenue. (One is led to wonder if they really mean what they say . . .)
(One is led to wonder if they really mean what they say . . .)
Maybe you wonder, Evan — I don’t.