* * * *
I'm supporting Diogenes Borealis in his Earth Hour boycott. This is just more trumped-up feel-good green nonsense.
Peter Foster calls it Earth Hour's soft fascism:
...Earth Hour was in fact pioneered last year in Sydney by WWF Australia, advised by advertising giant Leo Burnet. Leo Burnet's chairman, Nigel Marsh, demonstrated his skill both in semantic perversion and moral obfuscation when he declared: "I'm an optimist about climate change. The human race eventually abolished slavery and gave women the vote. We eventually work it out."
Get the implication? "Deny" the dubious science or dangerous politics of anthropogenic climate change and you're the kind of person who would support slavery and keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen!
On the other hand, Lorrie Goldstein suggests that perhaps the topic of climate change is no longer so relevant, since the Ontario budget barely addressed the supposedly catastrophic problem:
...Finally, and most tellingly, the media didn't ask one question of Duncan, Conservative Leader John Tory or NDP Leader Howard Hampton in three separate news conferences, about Premier Dalton McGuinty's plans to fight climate change -- not even as we all merrily prepare for "Earth Hour" this Saturday.
And all this astounding lack of interest about global warming -- according to Al Gore the greatest threat humanity has ever faced -- in the province which, next to Alberta, is Canada's biggest greenhouse gas emitter! Shameful!
Of course, what it all demonstrates better than any opinion poll could is how much of the ongoing hysteria about global warming only survives in the rarefied atmosphere of constantly re-enforced political and media propaganda...
Exactly.
So pardon me if I opt out of this propaganda stunt.
I'll have every light bulb in the house turned on - and they'll all be incandescent.
* * * *
Thursday Update: Oh good grief! Look what's on the front page of today's Record. What a thing to wake up to!! (On the plus side, I did finally send in my cancellation notice.)
Looks like Lorrie Goldstein is going to have a busy Earth Hour - Minutes count when saving earth:
Please read the whole thing. It is hilarious!!!
Looks like Lorrie Goldstein is going to have a busy Earth Hour - Minutes count when saving earth:
...HERE IS MY ITINERARY:
8:00 p.m. -- Turn off lights before leaving house -- naked -- mindful of George Monbiot's warning in Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning, that the campaign against global warming is a campaign in favour of austerity. In this light, I have decided to give up clothes, the manufacture of which is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
8:01 p.m. -- Hug tree.
8:02 p.m. -- Lecture next-door neighbour about his stupid idea of holding community barbecue to celebrate Earth Hour, noting burning charcoal, propane and natural gas to heat barbecues emits GHG. Angrily ask neighbour why he is cooking chicken and hamburger, given that meat production is a major source of GHG. Demand neighbour serve chicken and hamburger to guests raw, noting food poisoning is a small price to pay for preventing cataclysmic climate change and making the world safe for Al Gore...
Please read the whole thing. It is hilarious!!!
29 comments:
Not only will every light be turned on inside and outside, my husband will start the various machines in his shop. Every appliance will also be turned on. Bet my bill next month will not be much different than the one I got today.
How about flood lights outside?
The true challenge is finding an amp that goes to eleven.
Well, we all know what happens when you trust science to the fundies.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/none_so_blind_as_those_who_wil.php
Didn't someone recently release a list of deadly sins that included disdain for the environment? You are Catholic, aren't you? Sinner.
Above link should be:
http://tinyurl.com/2sloso
I use seal-oil lamps myself, but whale oil works just as well.
I use seal-oil lamps myself, but whale oil works just as well.
I think that counts as a renewable energy source.
I'm a fossil giving a big FLICK OFF
to EARTH HOUR.
How truly suckered in have we become?
I'm boycotting this thing too, bugger them. I'm also stockpiling incandescent bulbs since they will soon be banned here and these old eyes can't see with the other crap. Oh, and I these old arthritic fingers drop one of those mercury filled bulbs I might have to call in the hazmat people to clean it up, lol...ciao
Yes, Earth hour is a stupid stunt, but it may have an unconsidered beneficial side effect. In the city we have many inefficient streetlights, floodlights, ads and neon lights that all together make up what is called "light pollution". I know this may sound silly to some of you but light pollution is why in the city we can barely see the moon, let alone the stars. It also wastes energy and money. The lights we have spread light inefficiently in all directions, with much of it going up into the sky. This actually makes it more difficult to see, as the human eye prefers soft diffuse light to sharp blinding light. It is also not good for security as beams of too-bright light create darker shadows for people to hide in; because the eye is constantly dazzled and can’t adjust. There are better lights out there that use less light and properly direct it down to the street where it is needed; but few people know about them. These lights also cost far less money to use!
Unfortunately light pollution is really only talked about in Astronomy circles. Why does this matter at all? I will give you an example: Some time ago there was a black out in New York City (pre 9/11 I think) and people spent the night without lights. Hundreds of concerned people called weather stations asking what the strange "cloud" in the sky above them was. Some kind of pollution? It turns out the cloud was the Milky Way. People living in the city (by the way I am one of them; but I see the stars properly when I go camping) are completely missing out on the great wonder of the night sky. Shutting off the lights, if only for an hour could (if the weather is clear) help people stop and have a little application for the beauty above us.
Earth Hour is just harmless fun for the school kids. Why bother worrying about it.
I'm thinking of beating a whale to death and burning it, to see how much CO2 I can make.
I'm a fossil giving a big FLICK OFF
to EARTH HOUR.
Ha-ha! That was great. ;)
Rositta, I just had one of those bulbs come to the end of its life today, and it was a scary thing. Lots of flickering, and then there was this awful smell. Was that mercury? Yikes.
May, good point about star-gazing. I hadn't thought of that one.
Möbius, LMAO!
I shall be observing Earth Hour as I do every Saturday night at 8pm by turning off all the lights (except the nightlight - a broken hip on the way to the bath room is not in the cards - medicare costs eh)and heading to bed. The TV is already off - why watch the Leafs on CBC? The computer will be in sleep mode having beaten me in solitare and my little woman will be sitting by the fire trying to remember why she married the old ... rhymes with tart!!!
Lorrie Goldstein makes good points. Does one have to ask what the MSM's reaction would have been were it a Conservative budget that gave such short shrift to climate change?
WCT - It all sounds so romantic...
Earth hour. Kinda makes you want to run the dryer, oven and welder all at the same time, no?
So jsut what day of the week is Earthday? Sunday is the first, Moonday is the second, Saturnday is seventh. I guess I will have to light all my candles, turn on all my lights, fire up all my computers to do this vital research. The future of the world depends on it!
So I wonder where the finger will point should the crime rate rise over EARTH HOUR?
Isn't this stunt putting some safety at risk?
Oh, and have you seen the two latest Suzuki commercials?
1) were again he smashes a hole in the wall of a family's living room - looking more like one of those trophy deer in a lodge or northern resort than anything else. What's the message there? That B&E's ok and let's start picking on our neighbours?
2) the kids in their supposed kids only club house whispering nasties about other kids and their families. The kindergarten ringleader - Suzuki.
Our taxdollars hard at work.
Suckers all!
http://www.alternet.org/environment/80508/
pretty good article ..its really hard to figure out the truth of so many things .I only know there is way too much winter in Fredericton this year ....katou
I've been waiting until earth hour comes to put the oven through the self clean cycle. Almost makes me wish I had a smart meter, I could save a few bucks with all the suckers keeping the demand low.
Greg et al - Be sure to check out the Mercer link on the update at the beginning of this post.
Related to that:
What if all the 'deniers' overloaded the grid and there was a black-out?
Are the major networks, especially Newsworld, which has been running so-called documentary after documentary showing doomsday scenarios of climate change, are those networks also participating in the "lights out"?
Will they be stopping broadcasting for that one hour?
Tolerating 'Earth Hour' would be a small price to pay for that, Gabby!
Thanks for reminding me about this; I'm definately doing something for this day, but I don't think that the organizers will like it!!!
How many of you have voted in the poll at the G@M, Have you made special plans for earth hour, 84% say NO.
I plan to leave all lights etc on all day and night, just to make sure they are on during some time zone were it will be 8.pm.
What's the message there? That B&E's ok and let's start picking on our neighbours?
This is what you took away from that Suzuki spot? That B&E is okay?
I'm not sure what's wrong with you, anon, but I bet someone with a passing familiarity with the DSM-IV would be able to pinpoint it pretty readily.
more on earth hour impact
City spends $3,000 to shut off lights for Earth Hour
Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 08:34:41 PM
By Ray Stern
A few weeks ago, people all over the world were asked to save energy by shutting off their lights on a Saturday evening for at least one hour.
The Washington D.C.-based environmental group that put on Earth Hour, as it was called, did a masterful job of promoting the March 29 event. Phoenix was one of several cities worldwide that participated on an official level, switching off lights at several municipal buildings.
Hitting the lights is one of the most basic forms of conservation a person could practice, and I can still hear my father not-so-gently reminding me to do so every time I leave a room.
But as it turns out, it�s not so simple to darken big office buildings.
In Phoenix, the extra labor required to provide the hour of semi-darkness at City Hall and other municipal buildings cost taxpayers $3,000.
That�s right: Phoenix paid a few grand just to switch its own lights off for an hour.
Some of its lights, that is � the �non-essential� ones left on most other times.
As far as I can figure, that�s far more than the city could have possibly saved in electricity costs for that hour.
It�s a good bet that other government and business entities lost money on Earth Hour, too.
Cox Communications, for example, which participated by turning off some lights at 17 of its buildings, claims it incurred no expense for the event. However, the electrical contractor hired by the company donated the labor equivalent of 35 man-hours to make darkness happen, a Cox spokeswoman says.
Read whole article:
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2008/04/city_spends_3000_to_shut_off_l.php
Thanks, Anon! Of course, the Earth people would have some smart comeback for that.
Green is expensive - that's the reality.
Of course, the Earth people would have some smart comeback for that.
Ha, ha! Silly people who care about the earth. It is to laugh.
Green is expensive - that's the reality.
The alternative is expensive too, as I think we'll all be finding out shortly -- because of people like you and the commenters here.
Post a Comment