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notices and features - Date published:
8:24 pm, March 31st, 2012 - 31 comments
Categories: activism, climate change, energy, Environment, International -
Tags: earth hour
OK – so we’re a bit late with this – but it’s Earth Hour, 8:30 – 9:30pm NZ time. The lights go out for an hour, in a symbolic call for action on climate change.
Last year: “More than 5,200 cities and towns in 135 countries worldwide switched off their lights for Earth Hour 2011, sending a powerful message for action on climate change.”
Find out more about Earth Hour here, or check out their YouTube Channel.
We’ve only got one planet…
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Waste of time.
obviously, your argument’s so powerful you don’t need to talk about it…
What does it achieve? Nothing. Makes people feel good. Wooooo
Does Earth Hour Do More Harm Than Good?
Despite my realisation many years ago that the resources that we squander are limited I’ve always ignored Earth Hour. It’s always seemed inconsequential as we need real change, not turning off the lights for an hour once a year.
Yeah – yeah we do. How do we accomplish it?
Hard physics and immutable physical constraints will force our hand. Human civilisation won’t voluntarily make the changes required.
I agree. But it’s not going to be pretty.
I think humanity will – if they’re informed of the hard physical constraints. Hard physical constraints means that capitalism, which is predicated on perpetual growth, cannot work and so everyone is told that the economy is not the zero-sum game that it is by the economists, the banksters and the politicians.
Break through that delusion and we could probably achieve the change needed. Easier said than done though especially when so many seem determined to disbelieve reality.
Maybe people could – oh, I dunno – look at the job they do. And make an objective evaluation on whether it is a necessary undertaking from a global warming perspective. And if it’s not a necessary undertaking, then jack it in. And if it is a necessary undertaking then refuse to be party to those parts of their job that make unnecessary contributions to global warming…you know…like those plane flights to conferences and stuff.
Or maybe people could pretend that their job is necessary cause, like the mortgage has to be paid or whatever and switch off their lights for 60 minutes every year? Yup. That should do it.
I can’t believe I missed that at the time. Pure comedy gold there DTB.
We don’t whilst the Warriors are on TV!
Better late than never
Better symbolic action than no action
I fucking love electricity, it’s one of humankind’s most massive achievements. Why are we denigrating it with some symbolic bollocks like this, why not have a day to celebrate mankind’s cleverness and inventiveness. I’ve just spent the day at the RNZAF’s 75th anniversary air show, open-jawed and marvelling at the massive machines that human beings have managed to get off the ground and fly. Fuck, we’re an awesome race. The best this planet’s ever seen.
So awesome that we’re on a path to produce the first ever anthropogenic extinction level event.
….. and the last.
Yay! Team
Communism is soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.
VI Lenin.
CV’ll still be commenting on it, that’s for sure.
Put all the onus on the plebs again, do they ground their private jets for an hour….
I turned on all my lights, all my heaters and opened my door for an hour.
I hope this helps.
Helps your power company.
Hurts your pocket.
No-one else cares. Happy?
No one cares about Earth Hour. Happy?
I don’t care. Was I not clear about that?
Bill, yes I think a person can do things that reduce use of fossil fuel and power company provided energy. I agree all of your suggestions are worthwhile and could be achieved without putting people out too much. The internet means people who need to can conference on-line – problem is people benefit from direct face to face contact and it is good to get away sometimes. But it could be more limited – employment contracts for people in academic or professional jobs should not necessarily include a requirement to “attend at least one overseas conference per annum”.
Also more people are working from home and the internet is making this easier.
Walk to the shops, cafes, workplace or walk to your car or a bus stop and drive/bus the rest of the way – same coming home.
Don’t automatically switch the light on.
Open the windows a fraction – then you won’t need a dehumidifier.
Wear woollen or silk clothing.
Plant fruit tress and vegetables and take the trouble to eat them.
Learn to sew.
There are lots of small changes that you can make and if more people did they would add up.
One of the influences hampering this is the way public figures are shown in the media – posing in huge swimming pools in minimalist surrounds that require a lot of energy to maintain – pool machinery and chemicals, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, weed killers etc.
The aristocracy and upper class have always gone in for this kind of display and it shows they have access to more than their share of the earth’s resources and are driven in some way to show off.
A more materially frugal lifestyle does not have to be uncomfortable and inconvenient.
The Planet is in dire straits with advancing climate change set to eventually stabilize when the Earth reaches a new HOT state. (Sounds like sci-fi horror I know but look up James Lovelock on you tube for interviews. Gaia sequestered all those carbon deposits,oil, coal,gas for a reason! To balance conditions in the Planet’s biosphere to facilitate life’s flourishing But we have dug it up and burned them for energy)
All that energy has enabled us to devastate this Planet. with overpopulation and ravishment of its environment and the Oceans. It’s happened so quickly we were hardly aware of it ’till one morning those Science Bods and Greenpeace types told us so!
Yes Earth Hour is an infinitesimal token considering the reality.
There’s a very good article on the Climate Change’s run away train albeit very slow at first at Nature bats Last Guy McPherson’s blog
Link: http://guymcpherson.com/2012/03/the-cost-of-affluence/
The Cost of Affluence
It’s serious stuff. I have been familiar with all the dire forecasts since the early 90s what’s distressing and painful is they’re coming true, especially the ones about our frozen air conditioner the Arctic ice cap disappearing.
Climate change is shaking the world, literally
Global warming borders is close to being irreversible, according to conservative scientists
Greenland’s ice will melt at a much lower temperature than previously estimated
It might be irreversible already
The Arctic death spiral continues unabated
After all, a carbon time bomb has been dropped in the Arctic
At the other pole, an iceberg the size of New York state is about to break away from Antarctica
For many years, people have been metaphorically stealing glaciers to put into cocktails. Now they’re literally doing it.
Habitat for millions of people will disappear with flooding from the oceans
Water, water, everywhere, but the world’s rivers are failing to make it all the way to the oceans
Oceans are acidifying at an ‘unparalleled’ rate, and will not survive business-as-usual disaster-as-usual
Conveyor belt tipping point has been reached, as I pointed out in this space more than a year ago
As I also pointed out, at the same time under slightly different name, ‘Compost bomb’ is latest climate change ‘tipping point’
Meanwhile, drought in the southwestern United States is intensifying even as U.S. heat waves are set to intensify from New York to Los Angeles
According to tables of flowering dates in 1840s Massachusetts, average temperature already has risen 2.4 C in Concord since the industrial revolution began
Elsewhere in the United States, the heat is unprecedented, with 7,000 record high temperatures so far this year
A vital species of tree killed by climate change brings to mind one my favorite lines from Derrick Jensen: “Forests greet us and deserts dog our heels”
The abundance of dire information and a slow news days causes even ABC “News” to point out the weather weirding
World on course for catastrophic 6° rise
BTW, have I mentioned that the free-market is irrational due to people not knowing WTF they’re doing? Anthropogenic Climate Change is one of the results of that irrationality.
I can’t believe I missed you posting that during 2010. Pure comedy gold there DTB.
Let’s not forget the effect of climate change on infectious diseases. People who can will have to relocate and eat differently. They will also have to prevent and treat infectious diseases on a scale we have no recent experience of.
Most people will die, maybe including our children.
So we should try to do something to prevent it happening.
Each of us can make a difference – we just have to be shit-scared enough.
Why just be symbollic? Come on, its a good cause!. Ditch the house, the car, the ‘puter, the heating etc.
Go live in that cave.
You would if you really cared.
And its what you want for others, really, isn’t it?
Did everyone on this group turn their lights off for Earth Hour like they did in North Korea? Oh, hang on, the North Koreans do that every night don’t they. Wait a minute, so few of them have lighting that it just looks that way judging by the satellite pics. Gosh, they’re ‘green’ over there, aren’t they?
They’re not going green. they’re just going backwards, socialism in action…