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.”
Oh dear! i missed it. Curses.
For Human Achievement Hour (HAH) I plan to turn on all my lights. Each of my incadescent light bulbs will consume 8 to 10 times more energy than flourescent (dim) bulbs that will be turned off for Earth Hour. Sweet!
My indoor incadescent light bulbs give off heat as the supposedly unused energy, but lately, that indoor heat from lighting is offset by savings in heating my house. Being smart, only my outdoor lights are flourescent.
Drive a wooden stake through the heart of this World Wildlife Fraud inspired propaganda campaign. Consume as much power as you possibly can starting at 8:30. Individually we can each overwhelm any savings realized by twenty sheeple dwellings full of those CFLs! Go for the heavy hitters – electric heating, clothes dryer, self cleaning oven, fridge/freezer (turn the temperature down temporarily at 8:30) and even the air conditioning. May cost you a buck or two but would be well worth it!
OT . . . but *Gulp* . . . I looked at the sunspot indicator in the side bar and it looked like the sun is growing darker.
Had to run over to Space Weather.
Everything seems to be OK. Sun’s still there.
From iceagenow.com:
Human Achievement Hour
By Robert W. Felix
28 Mar 09 – New York City’s Empire State Building is scheduled to go
dark for one hour tonight, as are the St. Louis Gateway Arch, the Golden
Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza and many
other symbols of human achievement.
Environmentalists are leading a worldwide hour of shame and darkness,
a propaganda device invented by the World Wildlife Fund in 2007
I think this is a travesty, a slap in the face to all of those who have made
this world into a better place to live. Instead of being ashamed of human
accomplishment, we should be celebrating it.
Today, Eli Lehrer, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
(CEI), 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.
I wish it weren’t tongue in cheek. I think we should honor the leaders, the inventors, the creators, the businessmen, and yes, those horrible capitalists,
who have raised our lives out of the mud, out of the hovels, and out of the
darkness of yesteryear.
Now the global warming crowd wants to take us back into the darkness.
CEI also created a Wikipedia page on Human Achievement Hour to let
people know why it was established and how they might participate– just
as environmentalists had created a Wiki entry for Earth Hour.
Not content with freedom of expression, the environmentalists forced
Wikipedia to remove the page.
I am outraged.
This is the shame; to raise our children to believe that human achievement
is bad.
Please watch this video on Human Achievement Hour: http://blip.tv/play/AfXybYrPcw
.
I actually took the hippies up the road shooting… i had no idea it was earth hour, but the hippies remembered when we got back… so i saved on power by not watching tv… but i did leave the heat exchanger running, and burnt copious quantities of cordite using large centifire rifles on rabbits. 😉 my shoulder is black today!
We are witnessing the fall of a civilization. The cause?, as Aron wisely and keenly put it in another post:
There is no secret society or conspiracy. It’s just cronyism, idealism, political correctness and too much cocaine
We, commoners, do not need these or any kind of drugs to face reality, because none of us did build our lives on self indulging phantasies.
We, commoners, are not seeking for some cataclysm to solve our inner contradictions, because we have none, but our common and happy life of hard work and a family close and around us.
I am sure these words will make them inhale another more strong shot.
They feel lost in the world, that is why they need to implant in us their fear to survive. They are but frightened kids; this is why they dont´t even refrain in using kids for their pathological purposes (I am saying this because I witnessed today a march on the streets where small kids were more than 95% of the ralliers, taken carelessly out there by a small bunch of “greens”).
And for all those folks around the world sitting in the dark, burning their candles for light, they’re burning fossil fuels! Candles are made of paraffin which is a hydrocarbon made from methane. I shall have all my lights on.
here in Australia we had earth hour last night. I spent it at a concert given by The Who at a vineyard in the Hunter Valley. The carbon footprint and the noise were both stupendous as was the music. Lights, huge speakers and amps and we finished with fireworks.
For Human Achievement Hour, it isn’t necessary to do anything in particular: Anyone who doesn’t participate in Earth Hour is automatically, by default a member of the Human Achievement Hour club! I like that.
Maybe with more advance notice, more could be done with this idea next year.
My lights have been off since 6PM. It’s 11:15PM now.
That’s the way I work in my office every evening.
I planned to turn as many lights on as I can. I usually walk around the house turning lights off, that my family has turned on in rooms they don’t inhabit. I do this to save money that I don’t need to needlessly spend. I do that 364 days out of the year. This ridiculous night, I planned to do the opposite in defiance to the neo-commies.
However, my wife and I are going out to dinner. My 10 yo son came home from a friend’s house to tell me his friend wants him to turn the lights off. I’ll have to give him a lesson in the mindless Obamunists quest to control humanity through fear and intimidation. Hopefully, he’ll start to learn.
Disconnect from the electric utility company and connect to my gasoline powered generator for an hour instead . 🙂
Just kidding- atually I don’t plan on doing anything different.
It’s getting warm in here. I’m going to have to crack some windows cause I’m not turning the gas fireplace off nor turn down my furnace.
All floodlights on. Check.
Seasonal affective disorder full spectrum box on. Check.
All incandescent bulbs glowing nicely. Check.
Big screen glowing. Check.
Think I’ll make an electric pot of nice hot decaf. Check.
Laptop keeping me cozy. Check.
Too lazy to pull the cars out of the garage and I don’t want to risk CO poisoning.
Have I forgotten anything?
Oh yeah. I think I’ll run a tub of towels and throw ’em in the dryer.
Then later, a nice long hot shower.
I am walking around my house right now turning on every light and every floodlight outside.
Then I through I would go start my mustang and let it run for a while with the high beams on.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Correction: Then I THOUGHT I would go start my mustang….
MikeE (14:19:57) :
I actually took the hippies up the road shooting… i had no idea it was earth hour, but the hippies remembered when we got back… so i saved on power by not watching tv… but i did leave the heat exchanger running, and burnt copious quantities of cordite using large centifire rifles on rabbits. 😉 my shoulder is black today!
I hope you sequestered that bunny carbon in your belly.
8:34 here now. Every light is on and I’m flipping my 11 year old daughter right out. I know many think it’s better to ignore the whole thing, to not even give the concept any legitimacy by thumbing our noses at it. But I just can’t help myself. Long live the revolution!!!
Earth hour begins! Estimated Consumption at present 9kw. Im afraid to go higher and blow my breakers and become a de facto particpiation in this ridiculous charade.
It’s getting warm in here. I’m going to have to crack some windows cause I’m not turning the gas fireplace off nor turn down my furnace.
All floodlights on. Check.
Cathy, you need to turn on the A/C – Stat!
Earth Hour… what Earth Hour?
“jpt (12:24:55) :
I’ll turn the TV volume down…”
Funniest line of the day!
We’re all going to die from Al Gore’s SuperNova anyway. So, what does it matter.
YouTube video :
Cloud cover here so I did not turn on the spot lights skyward!!!!
I did fire up the burn barrel though!
Help strengthen the WWF brand identity:
http://www.unep.fr/scp/compact/dialogue/2004/pdf/WWF.pd
Help them achieve higher financial extraction leverage with corporations: http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/businesses/businesses_we_work_with/ways_business/corporate_club/