Earth Hour 60 - Saturday March 29, 2008

[G.B.]

Some or even many of you may be aware that last year on March 31, Sydney was the inaugural city to host Earth Hour 60 when we turned our lights out for one hour on March 31 at 8.00pm for one hour to help combat global warming. The target was to achieve a 5% reduction in energy use, we achieved over 10%.

This year Earth Hour 60 has gone global. Tomorrow night, March 29 at 8.00pm many cities globally will be participating. Even if your city is not participating, you can, and can register that you wish to do so at http://www.earthhour.org/sign-up

Some background from where it began last year and a Youtube video is at http://www.earthhour.org/about and the homepage http://www.earthhour.org

We can all make a small difference.

[JonathanBelles]

Ill definatly take part!

[G.B.]

Thank you fact789, every little bit helps.

I just posted the same message to a few genealogy mailing lists that I am a member of. The more people are aware, the greater chance of people taking action.

Gail

[Evil Jeremy]

You know that an event is important when it is on Google

http://www.google.com

[lurkey]

You know that an event is important when it is on Google

http://www.google.com

Ironically, the all-black Google screen might cause increased energy consumption depending on the size of the computer screen and type.

[Category 5]

My lights are out, darkness.

[JonathanBelles]

I did it. All my lights, my computer, the fan, cell, tv, and vcr were off an unplugged. The only thing that wasn't was the modem because it goes to the rest of the house. My parents would not participate because they think it doesn't work. So my room was the only room in the house with no lights.

[Beam]

If you really want to stop climate change you'd better get ready to continue "Earth Hour" indefinitely. Good luck with that.

Not a day goes by without hearing about the next stupid, hollow "green" initiative. Why can't people get it through their heads that energy consumption isn't as simple as all this? If people genuinely want to save the environment they need to pay their own cash to erect solar panels on their houses and lobby local government for the construction of nuclear power stations.

That of course requires effort and money. So yes, let's pretend we're saving the planet by switching the lights off for an hour.

Don't get me wrong, it's a cute idea to raise awareness, but to make any long term difference we're going to have to completely change everything, and do it in a hurry. Fossil fuels will need to become a thing of the past, with hydrogen fuel cell and fully-electric vehicles becoming the majority of what's on the road. More importantly, we're going to have to stop using coal and natural gas power plants entirely. Solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal power sources are great, but our best shot at a reliable, efficient, "green" source of energy, is to build more nuclear power stations to replace fossil-fuel based plants.

Nuclear power is our best hope for the near future, and it's something we could implement right now. Unfortunately, there is a huge public stigma surrounding it as a result of incidents like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, despite the fact that modern reactor designs cannot go supercritical in that manner. Because of this, every time a new nuclear power station is proposed, so-called "environmentalists" and the general public make a big uproar about it being built in "their backyard" because they're under the impression that these plants are meltdown-prone, radioactive waste-belching factories. Processing and disposal of spent fuel rods is also a big issue, one that was made worse by JFK's ban on nuclear fuel reprocessing. So mostly, there's a lot of public misunderstanding and political stuff that needs to be cleaned up. Too bad it won't happen anytime soon.

Sorry if I sound a little abrasive, but this entire "green" movement so far is only a drop in the bucket compared to the swift, massive changes that are needed to begin to reverse what's already been done since the Industrial Revolution. Call me pessimistic, but at this point I honestly don't think it'll happen. Barring a miracle, climate change is inevitable, in my opinion.

On a lighter (or should I say darker) note, Google looked great with a black background. They should have left it like that.

[tropicana]

Toronto was one of the cities that participated, many buildings elected to take part by switching off non-essential lighting, even the now glitzy world famous corner downtown, the Yonge-Dundas Square, which is home to the Eaton Centre, the brand new AMC 24 ciniplex, and has in recent months taken on the look of New York's Time Square with all the huge overhead advertisement signages, even they went dark for the hour.
Most malls here in Toronto close early on Saturday nights anyway ( Eaton Center closes at 7pm Saturdays) so its questionable how much power they actually saved.
At the nearby Nathan Philip's Square, Nelly Furtado and the mayor were there along with an estimated 10,000 other people for the event. Nelly Furtado gave of her time by staging a free outdoor concert for the hour, all the lights were off during the event, and it was an acoustic performance, so no energy was used during the event. The lady on the tv (for people who couldn't come down) was sitting in candelight.
(yeah i know, the tvs were on using power and the candles were not good for the atmosphere either) haaa but still the idea was good. At the end of the evening, they announced that Toronto Hydro (the power company) indicated a 7% drop in power consumption in the Greater Toronto area, with enough power saved to light 150,000 homes.

Earth Hour was a very good idea to raise awareness ..however, as indicated, it will take even more. We all need to take it further, by practicing these things daily, turning off all non-essential lighting everyday, only then will we see a huge difference. One hour out of a whole year isnt gonna slice it, but it was a start. Hopefully, it will grow even more over the years..thank you Syndey Australia for starting it last year. May it continue to get even bigger and better over the coming years.

-justin-

[angelwing]

I didn't bother, my lights usually dont go on until 9PM as everything I need to do it's still light enough for me; the hubby is always yelling at me to put a light on, he can't see and I can, I tell him to hush, lol.

[gtalum]

Nuclear power is our best hope for the near future, and it's something we could implement right now. Unfortunately, there is a huge public stigma surrounding it as a result of incidents like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, despite the fact that modern reactor designs cannot go supercritical in that manner.

Yeah, people tend to forget that 3 Mile Island incident showed that our precautions and safety procedures actually work. Further, a Chernobyl-style disaster is impossible here because we have containment buildings around our reactors and the Soviets didn't. We also use boron in our control rods instead of carbon which is extremely flammable.

Because of this, every time a new nuclear power station is proposed, so-called "environmentalists" and the general public make a big uproar about it being built in "their backyard" because they're under the impression that these plants are meltdown-prone, radioactive waste-belching factories. Processing and disposal of spent fuel rods is also a big issue, one that was made worse by JFK's ban on nuclear fuel reprocessing. So mostly, there's a lot of public misunderstanding and political stuff that needs to be cleaned up. Too bad it won't happen anytime soon.

Right on. France gets ~70% of its electricity from nuclear plants. There's no reason we can't do that and more.