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
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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
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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
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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.