Information Technology News It’s Our Earth, Well for One Hour Anyway | It’s Our Earth, Well for One Hour Anyway |
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| by David Heath | |
| Saturday, 29 March 2008 | |
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All day today, the promotions on the TV have been telling us to turn off all lights and non-essential appliances for an hour. In the next breath they tell us what will be screening at that time. I assume this means that the TV is an essential appliance. Perhaps I’ll be a good lad and contribute to Earth Hour by turning off my recording device, so I don’t break any laws! If you visit the Earth Hour website, you’ll find that 271,334 people and 19,493 businesses (including quite a few IT organisations if you look through the list) have ‘registered’ whatever that might mean. After all, how many of these businesses will actually be trading at 8pm on a Saturday? Considering they don’t seem to have to pay for registering, I can only assume this is nothing more than shameless self-aggrandisement by these groups. The more I watch the idealistic fervour, the more I’m reminded of the Global Concert for the Environment, which occurred just a few short months ago. Do you vaguely remember that? The sequence of concerts around the world that were supposed to focus the world on the environment. All it achieved was to allow a bunch of GenX-ers a chance to convince themselves they really cared. Briefly, anyway. Earth Hour is no different. And to add insult to injury, they’ve engaged a sweatshop somewhere to produce t-shirts – for a mere $29.95 you too can commemorate the event! One can only hope that WWF (the promoters of the entire event) have purchased sufficient carbon credits to offset the emissions created by their production. I’m pretty-sure the energy expended in promoting the event will far out-weigh the savings achieved; particularly if you measure energy in units of verbal hot-air. But if you want to know the real effect of Earth Hour, just hang out at the maternity unit of your nearest hospital next Christmas, it’s the same with every power failure!
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  written by davidheath, March 29, 2008
@Overseer...
feel bad? No, it was just a "grumpy-old-man" piece. Sometimes a negative article like this can actually encourage stronger positive feelings in those who disagree. Thanks for taking the time to respond. written by Critic2, March 29, 2008
Completely agree with you Dave! This is sheer garbage. Overseer, our cities are probably much cleaner today than they were in the 19th century in the days when every house burned wood and coal to keep warm. The products you consume, including the food you eat are made possible by producers using electricity. Want to do something for the environment? Get petrol guzzlers off the road and replace them with ELECTRIC cars.
written by Critic2, March 29, 2008
@Overseer - Oh and by the way, your 75 Watt bulb uses a small fraction of the energy of your refrigerator.
written by Overseer, March 29, 2008
Dave: My refrigerator is an essential household item containing hundreds of dollars worth of food… and the marketplace does NOT offer low-power fridge alternatives… However with light bulbs, we DO have these options, which as individuals, we CAN implement… so I am surprised you even brought this up as a point.
Critic2: Do you think electric cars get their batteries charged by magical free electricity sent down from the heavens? The electricity comes from coal-fired plants too… sent down a power line… and through an ac/dc converter to your car battery…. and yes, I am aware that the efficiency of doing so is much better than burning petrol; however, let us take baby steps before we try to run… Let me ask you: has the market-place got electric cars (or hybrids) produced en masse that are affordable by the majority of Australians and which provide the necessary km/litre? No, not yet… So let us ‘individuals’ start with things actually within OUR power… The higher order things such moving society away from fossil fuels altogether is something that only the slow-turning wheels of industry and government can fix. Cheers! written by Overseer, March 29, 2008
Apology to Dave… I just saw Critic2 said that about the light bulb… so my previous comment was to him :-)
For anyone who picked it up in my previous post, I used the expression ‘km/litre’ for an electric car… ooops… I just didn’t want to say the American term ‘mileage’ :-) I know someone will be thinking what the… more correctly, I should have just said ‘driving range’. written by lantana, March 29, 2008
Small minds are amused by small things, and there's nothing smaller than so-called Earth Hour. It will make bugger all difference once a year.
We should all be efficient and recycle more while making better purchasing decisions, but real environmental action will double our power and water bills and put up fuel prices by 50 per cent. How many Earth Hour enthusiasts will support that? written by Gavin1, March 29, 2008
Well said David, these new ages chumps and their trend environmentalism do my head in.
written by davidheath, March 29, 2008
Just a thought... what's the impact of manufacturing a candle... and the carbon emissions of burning one - all compared with a single 75w bulb? I'm quite sure most Earth Hourists right now are burning half a dozen candles and congratulating themselves for turning off one light switch.
written by Alina, March 31, 2008
Hello Scrooge,
I came across this article as I was writing my save the earth speech for writing class. Don't you get it? This isn't about how much electricty the event itself actually saves. This is about showing peeople that small actions do add up. It is about inspiring people to get out there and do something about climate change. It is a grand gesture, declaring our intention to make a difference in the world. It is about the results of the event, rather more than the event itself. Don't youu think that some people might have been impressed to see entire cities in the dark? That maybe it will make them think the next time they leave a room with the lights on, and ultimately about their lifestyle in general as it pertains to the earth. It isn't as though it was a hidden message or anything. Right on TV they went and talked about how they hope to inspire with this event. PS. No point in any of you doubters haranguing me. This is just a passing angry letter and I won't ever see anything you might write. Tell us what you think! better to paste your comment - this page will refresh every 15 minutes
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At the very least, the initiative keeps people mindful of how much junk us humans pump into our thin fragile atmosphere every hour of every day.
Think of it as advertising... outlay a small amount now for great returns in the future... It may have a domino effect... perhaps make more people get rid of conventional light bulbs (only 15 percent efficient), switch off appliances when they are really not needed, and take a 5 min walk down the shop for some milk rather than drive. Over time, this all adds up... or should I say ‘subtracts’ from our collective carbon emissions.
Sure, one person won’t make a difference, but together, we all make a HUGE difference if we each stop for a moment, consider, decide to care, and make changes. We will even save ourselves a few dollars for our efforts.
Even if the future shows that there was no link between human carbon emissions and global warming, and we are simply witnessing a repeating natural cycle, at least the air we breathe will be cleaner... who wants to end up with smog-filled skies like China?
The only thing I agree with you on is that Earth Hour will have the power generating companies saying a few expletives as the electrical load plummets by orders of magnitude, then, one hour later, bounces back to our usual energy-hungry ways.
I might read a book by candle light for that one hour and leave just the refrigerator on.
Cheers!
PS I hope I did not make you feel too bad about the negative tone in your article.