Mar 28, 2009
Posted in Science at 6:26 pm by David Bradley -- 15 Comments; add your comment
Is Earth Hour a great way to raise global awareness of how much energy we are wasting and the possible consequences or our actions? Or, is it simply a cop out so that we can all feel we did "our bit" for the environment without expending any real effort?
With just hours to go for us Brits before we have to switch off the lights, I conducted an ad hoc strawpoll on twitter, here are a few of the early responses.
4KM (Re: more than turning off lights). We’re turning down heat, 100-mile diet today, not driving, planting radishes in organic
wburris Earth Hour is so everyone can pretend they are doing something to save the planet
VeronicaMcG Yes Earth Hour could be/do more, but this step to coordinate Int’l grassroots action, awareness & cooperation is worthwhile.
tpolytmus I hope people are walking to these EarthHour meetups. (seen on #flickr)
sanmccarron Yes we should, but makes a statement to all. Bringing in one at a time.
ianwalker@sciencebase Earth Hour just sounds like another event to make people feel they’re doing something without having to change their lifestyles
TheTDog@sciencebase i think the idea is raise awareness about saving energy
Seema84@sciencebase I agree. If people put their TV’s on and other stuff it doesn’t make any sense
dnotice@sciencebase You could switch the colours in your internet browser: I’ve now got black backgrounds & white text…
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I reckon one of the biggest energy savings could be made if we abandoned the idea of press clothes. If everyone stopped ironing their shirts and abandoned the trouser press, we would quickly get used to the crumpled look and save the gigawatts of power used as well as making clothes last longer and so reduce the need to renew them so often.
You know, there’s much more we could do than just turning off our lights for one hour. One hour seems too little if you think about one year! Why not 1,2, maybe 3 minutes every day? That would make much more difference. Anyway, I give more tips like this in my blog (link above) if you fancy the read.
Cheers!
Nando
It was a beautiful event to see everyone participate in showing we care about energy.
This whole EARTH HOUR is a stupid as the idea from animal rights idiots as this rediculous MEAT OUT pushed by PETA, the UN and some other wackos
Pingdom measured the average uptime (availability) of tens of thousands of sites and servers across 126 countries during the Earth Hour time range and compared that number to the same period for the three previous weeks.
The result?
There was no noticeable difference.
Which Pingdom says means that Earth Hour had no noticeable impact on the Internet.