Mar 27 2008
Earth Hour: Whatever Happened to Earth Day?
I’m sure most everyone has heard of the upcoming Earth Hour. As I write this, there is just about exactly 3 days to go until the lights go out. The Earth Hour website states that the idea “started with a question: How can we inspire people to take action on climate change?” I’m all for inspiring change, especially when it comes to energy conservation, but this is a horrible idea.
Before I’m skewered, roasted over an open fire, and eaten as a victory dinner after the successful Earth Hour, let me explain. What is going to happen during Earth Hour? For starters, Earth Hour isn’t really an hour at all; it’s at 8PM local time. Why would this be? So that cameras can take pretty pictures of all the lights going off and they can be broadcast on the news. If you really wanted to have an Earth Hour, it should be at the same time all over the globe. But then some places would miss out on the excitement of getting to see the lights go out. So that’s right out.
Then we come to this fine saying:
So they want me not to turn off all my lights, just my “non-essensial” and “non-emergency” lights. Okay. I usually don’t have any lights on in my home after it gets dark anyway unless I’m cooking dinner. Don’t want to get burned you know.
But let’s speculate that everyone on the entire earth was a part of Earth Hour and they not only shut off their “non-essensial” and “non-emergency” lights, but turned off all of their electricity. The earth revolves around the sun once every year (by definition). During that time, there are about 8765.8 hours. One hour is equivalent to 0.011% of the entire year. Yes, that right. You can lower your CO2 emissions by just 0.011% in only an hour! Woop-de-doo.
Of course during this time, only the “non-essensial” and “non-emergency” lighting will be turned off. If these lights are “non-essensial” and “non-emergency”, then why are they on in the first place? Why not turn them off year-round?
Then there is this:
Repeat after me: you cannot make a difference. Maybe you could if you didn’t think that turning off your “non-essensial” and “non-emergency” lights for one hour made a difference. But it’s obvious that even the organizers of the event can’t last for more than an hour without their lights.
According to the US Department of Energy, only about 9% of household energy is used in lighting. Electric clothes dryers alone accounted for almost 6% of energy usage. This means that by using a clothes line you could immediately reduce your electricity bill by 6%. On the other hand, if you’re more interested in show, turning off your lights for an hour will save you 0.011%.
But life is full of nice surprises. Like the Earth Hour website somehow messing up the number of people that have signed up to participate. When I visited the site to grab these images, it only displayed 1 person as having shown up. After refreshing the page, the number quickly jumped to 227,690.
Getting back to the question that started it all. “How can we inspire people to take action on climate change?” Their answer shows what I think is a major flaw. Instead of showing how we can actually reduce both our energy consumption and our carbon dioxide output, they resort to a public relations stunt. This is extremely poorly thought out idea, and I will not be a part of it.
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One Response to “Earth Hour: Whatever Happened to Earth Day?”
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After seeing some reports about how biodiesel is INCREASING CO2 because of land use change (specifically in the rain forests of Brazil), is there any concern over what reducing electric supply will do to CO2?
I ask this in light of the recent Kansas veto of 2 coal fired power plants. Specifically, if this reduction in supply were to cause random black/brown outs in the colder months, won’t people from a rurual state tend to cut down trees and burn in their fireplaces?
My wife’s family is very wealthy, lives in the “country”, and yet still heats their entire house with a wood burning fireplace.
So, can anyone explain how reducing electric supply, thus causing prices to rise, thus causing people to pursue cheaper alternatives (say, the trees out back), does anything to lower CO2?
Further, having “Earth Hours” is completely arbitrary unless it is done during a peak hour, say mid-August in the NH. The power companies could care less you reduce demand, that just allows them to turn off their expensive generation facilities while still charging the average resident a flat rate. In other words, their profits increase, you burn candles for an hour, and they use less effecient (environmentally speaking) generation.
I just dont’ get the logic.