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.”
The ethically correct thing to do is turn on all your lights and run let you car engine on idle. The reason is that the more energy you put out, the more likely it is that you can reverse global cooling and stop the arctic cap from creeping all the way down into Kansas and Georgia, a danger that cannot be underestimated.
Global cooling has huge economic implications, here you must agree with the environmentalists. If the arctic cap covers Kansas, not only will the nation be deprived of its most valuable intellectual prowess, but also the wheat crop will be ruined, and we all know how bad that could be.
Figured you guys would love this. This is the first story about Earth Day. It shows comparision pictures of Sydney. Notice anything strange? Do they really think people dont notice its a picture of Sydney at dawn vs a picture of Sydney in the middle of the night to enhance the propaganda?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29900742/wid=18298287
I’m going to turn every one of my lights on and I have MANY.
4500 watts of line voltage outside alone.
I’m trying to adjust them so they shine a big middle finger up into the sky.
I was going to sign up for a WWF membership to help save the polar bears but I felt like an idiot.
Now I’ll be turning on everything to counter as many member’s efforts as possible.
Just so I’ll feel better.
I may even start up my vehicles and leave them running in the driveway. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
What else?
Help me now. The meaner the better.
Why?
Because they tell me i’m this stupid.
I’ll be turning on all the lights, putting on some headbanger metal and going down stairs and reload some .308.
Check out this “scientific” summary.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29900742/wid=18298287
‘Nonsense’ or urgent priority?
New studies increasingly highlight the ongoing effects of climate change, said Richard Moss, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and WWF’s climate change vice president.
“We have satellites and we have ships out at sea and we have monitoring stations set up on buoys in the ocean,” Moss said. “We monitor all kinds of things people wouldn’t even think about. The scientific research is showing in all kinds of ways that the climate crisis is worsening.”
But not everyone agrees and at least one counter-protest is planned for Saturday.
Suburban Philadelphia ice cream shop owner Bob Gerenser believes global warming is based on faulty science and calls Earth Hour “nonsense.” The resident of New Hope, Pa., planned to illuminate his store with extra theatrical lighting.
“I’m going to get everyone I know in my neighborhood to turn on every light they possibly can to waste as much electricity as possible to underline the absurdity of this action … by being absurd,” he said.
Last year, there was a lot of interest in Earth Hour here in Germany. It was heavily promoted by the popular newspapers, providing the main front page headlines on the day. The power companies were expressing real concern beforehand about the impact of a sudden drop in demand when the lights were switched off right across Germany.
In the event, it turned out to be a damp squid: the power companies reported afterwards that there had been no noticeable drop in demand at all.
This year it’s very different – there’s been very little coverage indeed in the German MSM. I guess they’ve learnt from last year’s experiences, and can’t see the point of promoting something that apparently very few people are interested in.
I get the impression the situation is similar in the UK. Apart from reading an article in yesterday’s Guardian about what a waste of time it was (“Earth Hour: Turning out the lights plays into the hands of our critics”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/mar/27/climate-change-carbon-emissions ) I really haven’t come across much else in the UK MSM.
Despite all this, though, I have to say the lights chez Paulus WILL be switched OFF at 8:30 tonight. Look, I’m sorry – but it’s Mrs. Paulus’s birthday today, and we’ll be eating a romantic candlelight dinner for two about that time, something which is definitely improved by the lights being in a state of offness.
“Damp squid”? Of course squids are damp – they live in the sea. I meant, of a course, “a damp squib”.
No change of plans for electrical use, sorry greenies. However, I have pledged not to pass gas during the hour, thereby making my contribution to a cleaner, fresher planet!
Putting Up Christmas lights and Driving my F-150 4×4 (Which given the forecast for NE Oregon, I will have to do anyway.) Christmas lights look good in the snow,BTW..
Sunfighter:
Environmentalists make the typical liberal mistake of thinking that the community of skeptics is mainly composed of politically dogmatic people who think shooting moose from helicopters if fun.
Of course, we all know that this is obviously not true. I just don’t know what gave them that idea. But nothing will stop them from trying to deceive you. Therefore, I would encourage you to go on shedding light on pictures taken at night.
@ur momisugly Aron (05:24:03) :
“I don’t know how many of you know this but there really is a movement dedicated to turning lights out. According to them even light is polluting. As usual they underestimate how adaptable species are by saying wildlife is confused by our lights….”
Aron, a proper “dark sky” policy is not a bad thing, nor are the natural conservation measures that come from it. Low cutoff light fixtures and targeted lighting can provide all of the security (including enhanced visibility due to glare reduction) needed, at much reduced wattage levels. There are documented municipal savings of upwards of 58% in energy cost to cities which have embraced a good dark sky policy. As a sometime amateur astronomer I’m all for it. As a taxpayer, ditto. This isn’t about embracing mind-numbing ideological suicide, its simply about using your head constructively. And yes, wildlife and many plants do have their circadian rhythms upset by night lighting. The aim of Earth Hour shouldn’t be to turn off the naked light bulb – it should be about properly shielding and directing it so that energy is conserved, costs are lowered and visual efficiency is achieved. If the proponents of Earth Hour were real, they’d all donate replacement low cut fixtures to their municipality or install them on their homes and businesses. I wonder how Las Vegas is working out for the Earth Hourites?
More feel-good fuzzy hubris from the left. I guess the science really is settled, earth hour proved it!
Every light in the house is on
The backyards bright as the crack of dawn
Thr front walk looks like runway lights
Its kinda like noon in the dead of night
Every light in the house is on
Just in case you ever do get tired of being gone
Every light in the house is on
Let’s think positive. Maybe if it cuts down on light pollution at night, at least the astronomers can rejoice, even if only for an hour. Otherwise, it’s just a trivial saving of energy as the enviroayatollahs generate more hot air while breathing out more CO2 and humidity that benefits our cloud cover.
bob p.
F Rasmin (00:10:08) :
PS. That should have been ‘me’! I am girding up for the final battle against the opposition (I am a Biotechnologist) by repairing to my lab whereby I continue to work on my pet hobby of attempting to raise the average IQ from that of the early Cro-Magnon (Have hope folks, I am very very close! It is all to do with activation and silencing of genes!).
FR, give Cro-Magnon a break! He was a survivor….
I’m going to shut the power off at the local ER for an hour to show my solidarity with those most vulnerable to climate change: the sick, poor and the elderly!
I’ll be turning on all my lights. I would light a bonfire in the yard, but it looks like I’ll have to run my snowblower instead for the 12+ in. of snow we’re getting tonight.
Then I’m going to shut off all the power at my house, cut down an old-growth tree and burn it in my fireplace for light and warmth! This is the best holihour ever!
Aron, a proper “dark sky” policy is not a bad thing, nor are the natural conservation measures that come from it. Low cutoff light fixtures and targeted lighting can provide all of the security (including enhanced visibility due to glare reduction) needed, at much reduced wattage levels. There are documented municipal savings of upwards of 58% in energy cost to cities which have embraced a good dark sky policy.
I agree with that part, as I said earlier that I am all for efficiency in every corner of life. Everything I do from walking somewhere to working on a project is built around doing no more than I need to and getting the most amount of work done with the least amount of effort. This began way back in my martial arts days when I learned about ‘economy of motion’ and then applied it to the rest of my life.
But like I said, there are unintended consequences to many of the things environmentalists advocate and if they thought about them more thoroughly they would be so much more effective and respectable. Dr. Patrick Moore and Michael Crichton are two of many people who have highlighted the disastrous consequences of ill-thought or ideologically driven policies.
Earth hour, is this another Gore Idea? i am willing to bet, that all those who shut off all their lights for one hour are now wondering where all their stuff went to.
OT, but related to electric consumption in a way.
California has passed the mandatory tire-inflation measure as part of fighting Global Warming via AB 32. Each time a vehicle is serviced, tire pressure must be checked and adjusted, by law.
The law applies to the 40,000 service providers including smog check stations, engine repair facilities and oil service providers. Those not included are car wash, body and paint, and glass repair businesses.
I wonder if this will increase employment? Will costs of each service be increased to adjust for the man-hours spent checking tires? Will service providers spend the capital to install an air compression system, if they do not already have one?
More importantly, how much will electricity use increase as those air compressors run more often across the state? Compressing air is energy intensive, especially with very small compressors.
Ahhh…California! Land of nuts and flakes, and not a few fruits…sorta like living in a bowl of granola, to mis-quote a favorite comic (Gallagher).
One can read all about it here:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/nr032609b.htm
I prefer to think of earth hour as an acronym; EARTH. Perhaps we should have a contest here for who can think of the most appealing and revealing meanings.
My effort: Environmental A.s.h.l.s Rejoicing at their Twitish Hypocricy Hour.
Now add yours. laugh at them. Death by a thousand slashes of sarcasm and denigration.
I shall be turning ON, all of my lights.
I’m turning on every exterior light I own…I will not go quietly into the night.
If we get the winter storm being predicted, I might be sitting around without any lights, or heat! But only if the power is out.
Otherwise, I’m going to ignore it.
I just posted the link and my comments on 25 ways to mark Earth Hour.
I personally found one suggestion was a good one, have a scotch or wine tasting party!
The most telling suggestion was to get out the Ouija Board. AGW and this toy work on the same principal….
http://theclimateheretic.com/