UPDATE: Somebody in Toronto is going to really aggravate the greens, see below.
Or more importantly, what will the United Nations do? The American Thinker points out the hypocrisy of the UN with the photo below. Does anyone live in NYC who can snap a photo tomorrow night to see if they follow “Earth Hour?
It is now midnight GMT March 26th, (5PM EST, March 25th in USA) Earth Hour is Saturday, and still is coming up at the time of this writing at 8:30-9:30PM Saturday March 26th in the USA time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii. It will of course happen in that 8:30-9:30PM local time in each timezone on Earth.
I’m interested in finding out what your plans are. What will or did you do? The poll is for entertainment purposes only, and is not scientific.
Choose your answer below:
Also, for a perspective that I embrace, I offer again Dr. Ross McKitrick’s essay on Earth Hour:
Earth Hour: a dissent
UPDATE: This just in from the Toronto Sun
“We will not be in the dark,” journalist and conservative commentator David Menzies said Thursday.
Instead, what you will find is a giant beacon in the sky emanating from his Richmond Hill street between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m.
“While everybody else has their lights off I will have every light in my house on,” said Menzies, as he prepared for his second installment in mocking the “phony” Earth Hour movement.
He’s also gone a step further.
“I have rented four rotating Hollywood movie lights which will light up the sky for miles,” he said.
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I’ll be celebrating Human Achievement hour by turning on every electrical thing I have.
I wish I could take credit for th following phrase, but I cannot. I will celebrate “Human Achievement Hour” to coincide with the Earth Hour silliness. I will enjoy the fruits of human achievement that provides light that chases back the dark; that provides reliable and affordable cooling or heat (it’s still rather cool here in Marina del Rey, California) to ward off the chill; that provides abundant and affordable fuel to power many modes of transportation and industrial activities; that provides reliable and still affordable electricity to power the myriad of devices that make life much easier, less drudgery, and more meaningful. I’ll be listening to Beatles songs played from digital files through an iPhone and an incredible speaker system.
I invite all others who are able, to join me in celebrating Human Achievement Hour.
My sympathies, though, to those in parts of the world who have yet to benefit from the positives of electric power – abundant, reliable, and affordable. Please trust me that we are working on bringing that electricity to you.
This is a disaster. I’ve just got back from the pub and found that I’ve missed Earth Hour. If I had been better informed I could have left all the lights on before I went out.
I will try to make up tomorrow (later today) by emitting extra methane.
Earth Hour? WTF is that?
For earth hour I will do exactly what I do most nights. Watch TV with my one 13w CFL on in my living room and no other lights on. Since it comes in the early spring and I live in Montana, where it is still somewhat cold, my heater will be on. Since I use a computer pretty much constantly, my computer will be on (lousy thermostat, so the lowest I can get it is about 70F). If earth hour was in the middle of the night, my house would be dark and if it was about one month later my heat would be off, which it is from late April or early May until the middle of October (and no, I don’t have A/C, although I do have a small swamp cooler).
I am *not* going to sit in the dark with everything off. That is stupid and not we people who advocate a change in our energy infrastructure are about. Earth Hour is stupid and gives ammo to those who want to portray “greenies” as people who want to go back to the 18th century. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Someone on the other thread suggested we call it. . .
The Hour of Power!
/Mr Lynn
Some interesting facts about the CO2 emission of the UN:
http://english.cctv.com/program/worldwidewatch/20091216/104320.shtml
In 2009, the UN announced that it “emits 1.7 million tons of carbon dioxide annually”. Half of this is generated during peacekeeping operations and 0.35 million tons are caused by UN staff flights. So 20% of the CO2 emission of the UN is caused by flying!
According to http://www2.icao.int/en/carbonoffset/Pages/default.aspx a round trip air flight New York – San Fransisco generates 710kg CO2 per passenger. So the UN flies an equivalent of 500,000 round trips NY – SF per year.
Wonder which other organizations flies that much.
I’ll be in NYC on business, but here are photos of what I did two years ago (and repeated last year): http://andstillipersist.com/2009/03/better-to-light-one-candle/. ..bruce..
Great poll. I only answered the way I did because, two yeats ago, I happened to be in the house of remote aquaintences when, at PM, or whenever, they turned off the lights and lit candles. My query was met with :”Earth Hour”.
This was, is and always will be a religious undertaking, because it was symbolic.
I wrote a facebook and blog post.
http://appliedimpossibilies.blogspot.com/2011/03/earth-hour-advocates-miss-grid-storage.html
You may also find this one interesting.
http://appliedimpossibilies.blogspot.com/2011/03/if-sea-level-rise-war-real-and-became.html
I believe a green grid is possible but not with the current generation of subsidised technologies blocking the next generation of technologies and no provision for grid storage to create carbon trading certificates, etc. I don’t think the government, left or right can speed up the trend towards energy efficiency and new solutions.
I don’t think turning on lights is a rational response. Responsible frugality with resources is sensible regardless of the debate.
Nonoy Oplas says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:29 pm
sorry, musta hit a wrong key….
I guess my point, Nonoy, was that the Philippine experience is really the experience of the US and the West. I haven’t done it myself, but if you look at the sponsors and the directors of the organizations sponsoring alramism in the P.I., you’ll likely find the same names that have dominated Philippine politics since Independence. An incestous bunch of Macapagals, Ramos’s, Cojuangcos, Laurels…. in 1986 Cory had the opportunity to fundamentally change the P.I. – the NPA were caught flat-footed by the People-Power Revolution and the people who put their lives on the line on EDSA were making a stand for change. They were sold out to the Philippine Hundred Families.
In the P.I., the sellout is a little more obvious than here in the U.S. … but we, too, have been sold out. Maybe, a new People Power Revolution in the P.I. can inspire the rest of the world….. remember, Tian-An Men Square was just one the revolts inspired by the P.I. People Power revolt…. though it ended badly….. Filipinos, perhaps, have a deeper sense of identification with people like themselves….. a perspective the marxists discuss under the umbrella if “false consciousness”
I’ll be playing a gig tomorrow nite…
Crap!!! I’ll be on acoustic guitar!!!! Oh, but I will be plugged into an amp. Time to turn it up to eleven!!!!! 🙂
Peter
“the UN announced that it emits 1.7 million tons of carbon dioxide
surely a good green reason to disband the UN
Bloody hell, I want human sacrifice at Earth Hour – just not mine. We MUST make amends for my Mercedes Benz.
It could be broadcast LIVE on CNN and the sacrifant be blessed and assured eternal reward in full pomp and splendor before their heart is ripped out of their living body. Hey, it’s been done before.
Take a look at North Korea on ANY night – they have extrapolated Earth Hour to its limit.
Is that the plan of these loonies, to make us all power-poor like the N Koreans?
I’ll be on a jumbo jet from Delhi to London. To help out I’ll turn on my reading light, watch a film and take deep breaths.
Whilst in India (on holiday) I have seen the smart leafy suburb where Pachauri and his chums luxuriate – and the broken shacks without electricity and without hope that millions of poor Indians cook their meagre meals on dried cow dung fires.
The aim of the spoiled brats and ecoloons who promote Earth Hour is to keep those people on the very edge of existance whilst they live a life of sybaritic hypocracy.
I cannot begin to express my contempt for them.
Actually, I’ll switch everything off in my house to simulate life with only wind and solar power instead of coal and nukes…
My commitment:
to not even care that it’s happening
I will be observing Earth Hour and turning off all my lights.
I was a bit concerned that I would then have to watch the Grand Prix Monster Drag Racing on television in the dark.
Luckily I came up with a solution!
I managed to secure a source of renewable bio-fuel (whale oil) from a whale which I had lured to its death by using another renewable energy source (wind farm) and so I will now have some whale oil candles to keep me going for an hour.
Business as usual.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.
Albert Einstein
Read Farenheit451.
FYI the UN building is being renovated right now, so those are probably construction lights. Maybe.
http://www.un.org/cmp/uncmp/english/d.asp
wesley bruce says:
March 25, 2011 at 6:37 pm
“I don’t think turning on lights is a rational response. Responsible frugality with resources is sensible regardless of the debate.”
======
Don’t know about you, but “responsible frugality” reminders show up in the mail every month at my house, i.e. electric bills.
The debate is about the size of said bills, we were told they would “skyrocket”,
business hates waffling politicians.
Yet, we wait.
I am usually in bed by 8:30, but will stay up and do some work in my shop. The lights brighten half the neighbourhood. I’ll fire up the compressor as well and maybe do a bit of welding for effect.
Cheers!
More light, more heat, more mass production, these eco nitwits could do the famished and freezing Japanese survivors a favour and change places with them. They know its shallow symbolism,I will be lighting up the house and idling my F250 diesel as a celebration of technology hour.You would think Japan, NZ, Chile and the Christmas Tsunami would give these nature worshippers a clue. Nature is your warm cuddly friend, hug a polar bear.The eco fad hour is 8.30 -9.30 on 26th March here.