Video follows.
On the evening of Saturday, March 23, people around the world are being asked by activists to switch off the lights for an hour to observe “Earth Hour”. Bjørn Lomborg says this gesture will do little to help the planet, and gives people the wrong impression about how to address climate issues. (See related WUWT post here)
Earth Hour is not the answer. Taken to its logical conclusion, if switching the lights off for one hour is a good idea, why not for all the other 8,759 hours of the year?
Electricity, and affordable, plentiful energy, is the lifeblood of modern civilization and prosperity. If you do switch off the lights, do it in solidarity with the 1.3 billion people in the world who live in cold and misery because they lack access to electricity. Do it to celebrate the benefits of innovation and technology.
Electricity has been a boon for humanity. And the cozy candles that many participants will light, which seem so natural and environmentally friendly, are still fossil fuels (paraffin comes from petroleum) —and almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs.
Fundamentally, cutting emissions in the short run is no easy task. Today, green energy is too costly to be a viable solution. Real breakthroughs in energy technology will only come with more investment in research and development.
Read the full commentary on Slate . Translations in 6 languages are distributed worldwide and available at Project Syndicate http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/earth-hour-s-counterproductive-symbolism-by-bj-rn-lomborg
Here is the official Earth Hour video. Note the use of candles along with other imagery, designed to tug at emotional heartstrings.
I’ve just switched on ALL the lights in my house for the coming hour — I want to celebrate the technological miracle of having much power and convenience mere flicked switches away….. I think I’ll go fire up a few extra appliances too, just to celebrate the hopes for POWER and ENERGY for all.
Ok… well I have a 300 amp service here in Ontario and it’s just turned 8:30 pmTime for my annual electrical system stress test!
Who has more fun than skeptics 🙂
I’m burning every light I have, in the central time zone.
Ever wonder what would happen if enough people actually suddenly switched everything off at once and then an hour later tried to turn it all back on at once? Electricity supply and load should always be balanced. A large demand step function up or down could pose a serious problem. Hmmm. These greenies should know better, being self-proclaimed energy experts. And maybe they or at least their leaders do. Anarchy in the 21st century. Won’t that be fun
The Green Display on the Sydney Opera House may have tied in with some silly hour, but initially had more to do with the Irish St Patricks Day. Even the worlds only 7 star hotel the remarkable Dubai Burj got in on the act with the addition of an Irish Shamrock. 20 pictures from around the World here;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/in-pictures-millions-celebrate-st-patricks-day-around-the-world-8537972.html?action=gallery&ino=18
We had a pizza party both ovens maxed-out, got the hot tub warmed-up for the ladies, did some laundry, while dad and I went into the heated shop to do some welding with the three phase TIG.
To be pedantic, 365.2425 days × 24 hours = 8765.82 hours (using the Gregorian calendar’s approximation)
So if we are using 1.5 Earths, as the video claims, how is any of that helping?
If the USA uses a quarter, then can someone do the math? What American is going to give up 90% of their resource usage?
Seems a bit propaganda like to make a feel good passionate dance youth party video whilst not mentioning the inevitable conslusion?
Why, they are just fighting Communism, aren’t they?
One hour will not save the planet, however, it is start. It also raises awareness to the important issue. Like the story of the starfish :
http://www.ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com/articles/the-starfish-story.aspx
Every little gesture will help !!!!
To celebrate man’s triumph over darkness I left all the lights in my barn burning last night while I slept. I noticed my neighbor left all his outside lights on, including the Victorian style street lamps that line his very lengthy driveway.
[snip] – Ad Hom.
if you wish to comment here please learn courtesy, especially to other commenters. Go and look up the meaning of ‘Ad Hominem’ and realize that its avoidance is part of the comments policy ~Mod.
As always, I celebrated Earth Hour by putting my lights on.
Here, close to the English south coast, so far we’ve escaped the latest bout of global warming, but much of the country has ground to a halt due to heavy snowfall, the heaviest March snowfall for many decades. And to think that just a few years ago the Met Office were telling us that snow was becoming a thing of the past!
I was greatly heartened by the editorial in today’s printed Sunday Telegraph. They are actually calling for the Climate Change Bill to be scrapped. For most of my life I voted Conservative, but no longer. I’m a UKIP man now! I will never vote for a party whose policies are designed to push up the price of energy. Recently I added a new condition: I won’t vote Conservative until the Climate Change Bill is scrapped. I’m not holding my breath. But who knows?
Christopher Booker also has an excellent piece on the climate change madness. As he tirelessly points out, the sheer stupidity of our ruling classes – with a few honourable exceptions – is breathtaking.
Chris
Ha… It looks like in Ontario there was a very significant upward spike right at about 8:30 pm… eyeballing it looks like the actual demand was about 15% above the predicted demand. To see this, go to http://www.ieso.ca/, then double click on the graph and then on the more detailed graph that shows up, you can click on ‘yesterday’ to see what it was last night.
It looks like I wasn’t the only one doing my annual electrical stress test during this timeframe!
Damn! I forgot all about it, (again).
This is the Swedish electricity consumption last night and nothing out of the ordinary (not everyone stays up all night …).
17.00 – 18.00 — 18704
18.00 – 19.00 — 19379
19.00 – 20.00 — 19612
20.00 – 21.00 — 19177
21.00 – 22.00 — 18657
22.00 – 23.00 — 18174
(values in MWh/h)
[snip – vile language – obviously from Calgary’s finest – mod]
This year, I did nothing special during Earth Hour. Next year I will celebrate Earth Hour by turning all lights ON in my home, like many other commenters here.
Kon Dealer says:
March 23, 2013 at 7:57 am
“More lunacy from the UK Met Office.
http://people.virginia.edu/~rtg2t/future/gcc/UK.Met.quick_guide.pdf”
Perhaps the “boffins” at the Met Office could explain which of these various global temerature records leads them to believe in “Global Warming.”
Global Temperature Record
CET 472 years
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/14.jpg
600 Years Arctic Temperatures
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/images/arcticbg.gif
1,100 Years Ljundgqvist et al
http://www.co2science.org//articles/V15/N28/ljungqvistetal2012b.gif
2,000 years – J Esper et al
http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/bilder_presse/09_geo_tree_ring_northern_europe_climate.jpg
2,400 years
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Climate%20Change/Subatlantic_Had.png
3,000 years
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Climate%20Change/Sargasso_GISP2_Moberg.png
4,000 years – GreenWorldTrust
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/Main/Warm_periods.jpg
10,000 years Greenland GISP2 Ice Core
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
10,000 years GISP2 (Greenland) Ice Core
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/gisp2_10ke1.jpg
10,000 years Vostock (Antarctic)
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/vostok-10kd1.jpg
10,000 years Greenland (GISP2) Ice Core
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/easterbrook_fig5.jpg
140,000 years Vostock Ice Core Data
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cHhMa7ARDDg/SmDoZBIkB3I/AAAAAAAABAc/KkUzrz2abwI/s1600-h/Vostok-140Kc.jpg
400,000 years Vostock Ice Core Data
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/vostok/graphics/tempplot5.gif
5,500,000 years Vostock Antarctica Ice Core
http://www.oocities.org/marie.mitchell@rogers.com/climate_files/Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png
How do you know that Earth Hour is done? When none of Canada’s National papers even mention it the next day. Even the Red Star has nothing!
As another commenter above mentioned it looks like Ontario celebrated the ‘Hour of Power’. Usage spiked sharply around 8:30 and dropped again an hour later.
It’s the day after Earth Hour, so this posting is late, but I can give some figures from Nova Scotia. This year the reduction in power consumption during Earth Hour was down 5 MW. Last year it was down 11 MW, and the year before 18 MW. That 5 MW is about 1 per cent.
IanM
WTF….the fact that no papers mentioned it (or any other media for that matter with the exception of Sun News who pre-emptively discussed and denounced it) is the first clue of what a pathetic and dismal failure it was. What I want to know is how the organizers themselves will explain away the significance of the increase in demand right at 8:30 pm. Incidentally, I have friends in Kitchener who seem to have an unofficial policy on their street of leaving all their Christmas lights up instead of taking them down when the Christmas holiday period is over…the reason? So they can all be turned on for ‘earth hour’. What a delight it is to see the lights all on for that one hour and by 9:30, they are all switched off. The day after ‘earth hour’ is the day the lights can finally be brought down and stored away for the winter. Now THAT’S a tradition I can support! I was telling my friends that they should close the street down and have a great big street party to celebrate… they could call it the anti-stupid party’.
Here’s my 2013 sit in the dark for an hour challenge then:
If all the ecotard slacktivists around the world can be pursuaded to disconnect their PCs and stop wasting interweb bandwidth verbally jacking off for a year; then I shall connect a webcam, catch a pixie, a leprechaun, a gnome and a goblin and telecast them all physically jacking off every day for a year.
Imagine the electrickery that could save!
Earth hour is dirt dirty dirty..
The power companies that are in up to their eyeballs, (wind and solar) are also the polling company that reports on public support (savings over the hour)..
Like all things political green there is nothing ever left to chance..
The power industry has taken and run with Billions upon Billions of our tax dollars in the name of green.. Its been their only source of growth for the last 20 years.. This is fresh and free money that they can splash around as they see fit as long as they tow the line..
The idea that they are fit to report on Earth Hour and treat it as some indication of public support is CRIMINAL..
The term.. CONFLICT OF INTEREST comes to mind and rightly so…
dirty dirty dirty..
What I want to know is how the organizers themselves will explain away the significance of the increase in demand right at 8:30 pm.
—–
Clearly its the very very small % of redneck flat earth deniers who moved a few loads of laundry to Saturday night..
Rent seeking alarmist greens have nothing to fear, except maybe a snow storm in April..