Earth Hour hopes to shed light on climate
So are the St. Louis Gateway Arch, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza and many other iconic structures.
The lights will be going out for Earth Hour, organized by the World Wildlife Fund to draw attention to global warming, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday local time around the world. That’s when organizers of the event, which began in Sydney in 2007, want everyone to turn off non-essential lights.
About 2,800 cities in 83 countries — including 250 in the United States — had signed up, according to Dan Forman, a spokesman for World Wildlife Fund, an international conservation organization that boasts 1.2 million national members and close to 5 million globally.
Forman said organizers want to send a message to Congress and to global leaders working this year on climate change legislation and a treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
“It’s all about the symbolism,” he said. “We fully recognize that one hour does not put a dent in the climate crisis.”
The effort has its critics.
“We think Earth Hour, even if you are super-concerned about global warming, is a little lame, and we are making fun of it,” said Eli Lehrer, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Washington, D.C., think tank that supports limited government and decries global warming “alarmism.”
CEI has announced a “Human Achievement Hour” to counter Earth Hour. The group says millions of people will participate by turning the lights on, going to a concert or seeing a movie. “It’s obviously tongue-in-cheek,” Lehrer said.
Many companies, however, are serious in support of Earth Hour, Forman said. Coca-Cola, for example, has pledged to turn off its big signs around the world, including a marquee in New York’s Times Square.
Schools and universities across the country are also participating, including the University of Louisville.
“We are trying to change the cultural attitudes and behavior,” said professor Barbara Burns, chairwoman of the university’s Sustainability Council. “And one of the first steps is awareness.”
Checking web camera shots of Washington D.C. throughout the last hour. Not a single light on a single Federal building had been switched off that I could see. Capital building lit up brightly as usual.
I suppose Congress is not subject to their own rhetoric.
Well, Earth hour has been and gone in Canberra and on the whole I think it went rather well. Thousands of people all sitting in the dark with that “fuzzy warm feelgood ” feeling. Good on ’em.
“Hold up!” you may say, ” you’re in the wrong forum mate”.
Noooo! WUWT is exactly the right place.
The gods smiled on me last night and presented me with a little “social engineering” opportunity.
About half an hour into the event I was outside in my driveway unloading some groceries from my car when down the road came a group of youmg kids all sporting candles in jars checking to see who was participating in Earth hour.
They stopped at my place and said “Hi”.
“Back at yer kids, are you having a good night?.
I received a collective “yep!”
Then the biggest or oldest of the group ( about 13 or 14) noticed that I had my porch light, kitchen light, lounge and backyard spot lights on.
“Are you going to turn those lights off?”
“Why ? “I said.
“It’s Earth hour and you MUST turn your lights off! “.
It was a full 5 seconds before I could think straight because of the 120 decibel alarm bells ringing in my head.
“Hold the phone ” I thought. Who taught them that little chestnut.
My immediate reaction was to tell the little buggers to sod off but my evil alterego took over and I decided to ask them some questions instead.
“What does turning the lights out do apart from making things go dark? “.
Every one of these kids was armed to the teeth with answers.
“It saves the planet ” said one. “And it saves the environment” said another. “It stops climate change and droughts so we can grow food.”
And from the smallest “teenie greenie ” came ” It stops ice from melting and saves the polar bears “.
Damn, I should have seen that one coming, what was I thinking?
These kids were on a quest. I was actually being stared down by a pack of mini enviro-vigilantes. The theme tune to ” The good the bad and the ugly ” came to mind. Then it suddenly struck me that perhaps this was an opportunity to do some good in this world, something like save the planet my way.
My next question to them was a bitch I must admit.
“How many polar bears does Earth hour save? ”
The group mumbled to themselves in the dim light of their flickering candles.
I noticed that one of the smaller kids had a big soot mark across it’s forhead.
Must have been the mark of the devil.
Note to WWF. Drop the panda and get a shot of this kids face. LOL
I am still wondering how they worked this out but it appears they believed that 1 polar bear would be saved for every city that turned out their lights.
I quickly established that they beleived that using any electricty whatsoever from a coal fired power station was bad and killed animals. Cute!
“Ok then, what about having an Earth day, how good would that be? ” I had just set the trap, these guys now thought I was on their side.
That was met with much nodding and smiling.
” Lets then save all the polar bears at once and have Earth year. ”
I’m sure one of the little tikes was about to hug me. This bunch was now becoming very enthusiastic about the prospect.
” Do you all think you could do that to save the bears? “.
Another collective “Yep! “.
The bastard in me was now shifting into top gear.
” You realise of course that to do that you must not use any electricity at all. ”
One of then almost looked like he knew where I was going with this.
” And that means no lights, no cooking, no hot water. ” And here came the knockout punch. ” No ipods, playstations, youtube, xboxes or the internet .”
” Don’t take my word for it, go and ask your mum and dads. ”
I also added that the electricty used in a google search was enough to take out a penquin. If only I had a camera!
If anyone needs to know how to turn a happy crowd into a hostile one in 1.5 seconds just drop me a line.
I could see that they were giving this some thought. The youngest looked most puzzled.
” Don’t worry kids, not all electricty comes from coal, we have windmills and the don’t kill polar bears or penquins. ” Phew!
” Just parrots ”
Not wanting to hear anymore home truths the pack went on it’s merry way debating, I’m sure, whether it was really worth saving polar bears after all.
I did reassure them that the ice was not melting and the bears would be just fine.
I may have been a little over the top with these kids but a little dose of reality now and then must help. Must’nt it?
The scary thing about all of this of course is these kids are being fed this climate change BS and it is going to be very difficult to correct it.
Anyway having managed to burst their little bubble It was I who now had that “warm fuzzy feelgood” feeling over Earth hour.
Come to think of it I’m rather looking forward to next year.
Ian
My wife will will be running the washing machine, the kids are watching tv, and we have two computers running as well as some lights on. I should go put the porch light on for good measure…
Lights are on and I’m about to liberate some CO2 sequestered by Budwiser.
What did I do for earth hour? Cooked, added some red wine, cooked some more, tasted a glass of the red wine for quality control purposes, of course, tasted the red wine again to make sure that the bottom of the bottle tasted the same as the top, and completely forgot about “earth hour”. Oh, well. All the lights were on, the oven and stove were on, the quality of the red wine was thoroughly tested, and now I get to trudge through the pouring rain to carry a bottle to a lamb and check on a ewe that is near term. They always like to lamb in the worst weather.
Enjoy a quiet outdoor evening fire by pouring gasoline on a pile of old snow-tires.
Earth Hour does us a service by worming into our brains now.
So when the inevitable rolling black-outs hit us, we’ll already be conditioned, and it won’t seem so scary…
The lights that I would like to turn off don’t belong to me. I pay for them, as do all the residents, through surcharges imposed by the local utility company.
One of these days, we are going to have to unwire them.
Thanks for the reminder (7:42 local time) just in time to fire up the (almost never used) yard lights and get a string of outdoor christmas lights going…
Hey, I didn’t make the rules. Someone else decided to make this a political statement, the least I can do is vote my conscience.
FWIW, I find the pointless posturing to “make a statement” that means nothing, accomplishes nothing, changes nothing and raises no awareness to be incredibly stupid. But since someone else decided to make this an issue, least I can do is help make the stupidity obvious.
Once my boss had a flickering fluorescent light over his desk. This caused him to be very irritated (and eventually could cause a headache). This is related to the tendency to epilepsy. Too much of the trait and you have epilepsy, too little and you have slower reflexes: A lot, but not too much, and you have very fast reflexes and fast thinking; but a 3 cps flickering light that sets of epileptics causes severe irritation. (FWIW airline pilots have the most of whatever the trait is without being over the line…). Calls to facilities to change the bulb were greeted with “it’s not a crisis, we’ll get to it soon enough”. Day 3: Flickering light. Boss climbs on desk, takes bulb out and drops it on the floor (didn’t break). Takes out second bulb and drops it at a 45 degree crossing angle: satisfactory breaking glass and dust pile.
He then called facilities and reported a health hazard with broken glass, phosphor powder, and mercury contamination; oh, and unsafe low lighting. It was cleaned up with new bulbs in and fixed in about an hour.
The point? Sometimes you have to be a bit of a jerk and make the stupidity obvious. Time to go use the lights to do my bit to “make the stupidity obvious”…
Rolling blackouts are not inevitable. What is inevitable is that the greed that makes money off of the useless mass of lights burning at 2am.
The UK counties already got smart and de-wired a lot of them.
Folks complained at first, then got used to it.
Well, I missed it. I went out fishing and forgot all about it. I caught so many crappies I lost count. I quit fishing when I ran out of minnows.
All was not lost, however. Mrs. H.R. didn’t (and still doesn’t) know a thing about it so the TV was on, she made dinner (a rarity, I’m the cook), and lots of lights were on as she had been puttering about while waiting for me to get back from fishing.
I suspect a LOT of other people forgot all about Earth Hour.
swampie – your lamb likes red wine?
Carl Yee (13:12:28) :
Oh yes, will also fire up the BBQ and scorch some prime beef. Still can’t decide if charcoal or propane gives off more CO2.
Charcoal. No hydrogen so all the energy has to come from C combustion, so more carbon used per BTU.
Turned on every light, turned up the temp on the heater. Then got in the car – V6 – And drove half a mile to the corner store.
My teenage son and friends think the Earth Hour is a crock of …
They thought Human Achievement Hour was hilarious.
Well I have most of my lights on, turned the dryer on with no clothes in it, am about to turn the dishwasher on, and have the furnace fan on curculate.
With any luck, the major impact of “earth minute” or whatever it is, will be to educate some folks about just how important it is to have lots of electricity and light…
Front string of christmas lights up and on.
Back and side yard floods on.
Front porch light on.
Driveway Sodium Vapor on (automatic).
Clothes in washer / dryer.
Living room TV on and all lamps lit.
Computer and network on.
Fridge door opened frequently (beverage check 😉
Kitchen lights on.
what else…
Ooh! Bedroom entertainment center! I forgot to fire up the bedroom!
And in just 25 minutes I need to start the electric oven on the cleaning cycle…
FWIW, the neighbors have about 25 incandescent lights on an extended grid lit up over their patio for a party of some kind. Always liked those neighbors…
At the appointed time for this worthless demonstration significant snow was falling from the sky with an accumulated depth of 3.4″. The “Gore Effect” sure is making a grand appearance! If we get enough snow maybe the snow mobilers will be able to ride into April. I was too busy keeping the house warm to worry about turning off the lights, as it should be. Too bad this irony is lost on the true believers of the church of global warming.
After reading the 244 comments, I think the energy usage during earth hour may have set a new record.
Aron (22:35:51) said : “I wrote this yesterday: By the way, may I ask everybody here to support Earth Hour :)”
Aron, I understand your position (and have to apologize that I’ve not read most of the comments since Aron’s missive of 22:35:51). Here, (GMT + 4), Earth Hour has come and gone some three hours ago. I didn’t feel rebellious, but also did not see a need to cooperate. I love seeing the stars without light “pollution”, as only observable far in the wilderness, but I hate hypocrisy and “ends justify the means” Machiavellisms.
The bottom line right now is not so much effective conservation and thriftiness, but to change arrogant and economically disastrous attitudes such as “we have to stop/combat/fight climate change”. Time is of the essence – less than nine months to the Copenhagen conference on the Kyoto succession process.
Let’s put our heads together and marshal viral cyber might to mount a broad, post-partisan crusade for alternatives to the consensus doctrine!
UL
ian middleton (17:45:42) : nice story! appreciate your restraint
Let’s see, what did we do: hockey game on TV (featuring the proper use of hockey sticks!), washer running, dishwasher running, two computers in use, which required a light on in two rooms, two space heaters in addition to the furnace, a brief car trip, opened the refrigerator a couple times. In other words, normal Saturday night behavior. Except for the occasional unnecessary flush.
My power has gone out at least three times this winter, once for over a day.
So I believe I’m exempt from earth hour or at least should be paid out in carbon credits for all my sacrifice! :p
Lights are out, computers are on. No candles.
The unchallenged assertion that the power grids will continue to run at capacity is, or crash because turning off lights will reduce demand to zero, er, about what I’d expect.
“…The silly part of this is that the grid will still need to be running at capacity, so no actual CO2 savings can be made (- if you really believe that makes a difference).”
“Here in Europe, one is anxious that power plants could not react to a total loss of demand on the grid at 8:30 PM local time. If the success…”
Commendations to
John (21:57:17) :
Mick J (06:16:47)
for noting that conserving finite resources might have some value.
Overall, this blog is mostly clean fun, but hardly persuasive. Have a good time in the fort, guys.
Bill Abbott
Went for a walk, got home at 8:30, then switched on all lights visible from the outside. It’s now around 10pm and all surplus lights are now off.
As far as I can say, none of the 10 million Czech citizens has celebrated the Earth Hour.