Earth Hour

[Geofa 108]

Reminds me a couple years ago in Detroit at the Auto show they were making a big deal about electric cars.I heard a radio interview with Bob Lutz (a pilot and big time automaker).He asked the interviewer who thought electric cars were great and the future where he thought the electricity to power the electric car was coming from?-coal of course-one of the worst pollutants!He explained that burning gasoline was actually more environment friendly than the electric car-but of course that just whisked by the old logic meter....http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Guest]

Yup. I worked in energy research (though before that time) and such stories are all too common.Solar cells for example pollute more during their lifetime than the equivalent production capacity in oil fired powerstations.While the energy they produce doesn't directly release anything, their production (and the production of the raw materials, we took everything into account from the mining of silicon, the piping of the oil, to the soot released from a smokestack and the fuel burned by lorries and delivery vans) is so polluting and their lifespan so short that overall they're worse than burning oil.With electrical cars that comes into play but even worse are the line losses of the electricity between the powerstation and the place where you hook up that car.Those line losses can be as high as 50% or more depending on distance and weather conditions.

[geoffco 0]

We turned off the lights in my flat here in the Netherlands and I took a walk outside to see if there was any obvious participation - there wasn't. The thing that was most clear though was that (at least here) we could loose about 50% of the streetlamps without making much difference to road / pedestrian safety...In itself, one person going through all the motions (cycle to work/public transport/car-share, turn off (not stby) electrical stuff, low energy lightbulbs, brick in the toilet reservoir to reduce water volume etc etc) will make very little difference but if everyone does it it will, with a little time, undoubtedly have benefits for the environment and our long-term well-being as a species!Geoff

[G7USL 117]

All the major motor manufacturers were asked a while ago, to produce an engine alternative propulsion that didn't use oil.They ALL did it with great results but, the governments failed to institute legislation to ban all oil driven vehicles within a space of five years simply because of the amount of revenue they recieve, for selling oil.It's all about money.Global warming is talked about only.We have a saying here in the UK - "The lights are on but, theres no one at home".

[Guest zzmikezz]

G7USL,What if the cost of a non-polluting car that did not use fossil fuels was one million pounds. Would you be in favor of it? If that price is too high, what is the highest price you would be willing to pay, and how does that price compare to the current prices of cars?Or don't you drive?

[Guest DK8290]

This is more of a symbolic effort but a real-world solution would be better and more efficient night lighting solutions.Years ago I was an active backyard astronomer. Due to this, I became keenly aware of the concept of how much wasted light there is produced at night. The school across the street had exceedingly bright lights that stuck out from the sides. Due to the design, half the light from these went above the horizontal plane .... in other words, was wasted upwards! To me at the time, the issue was to combat this light with obstructions to keep my eyes dartk-adapted to pick up magnitude 11 galaxies in my telescope, for example, but it also made me think of how much power is wasted in this ineffiecient night-lighting that happens all night long. Even now the majority of night lighting is totally wasteful. FOr example, by improving street lighting, you can direct the light down onto the roads and keep the bright bulb area from getting into drivers' eyes. Due to their bulbous designs, most street lights have a good percentage of light going horizontally or even some degrees above the horizontal plane. This is wasted energy. It is throwing money and esources onto a fire and has zero purpose! If one thinks of it logically, it is clear just how rediculous the designs of the vast majority of night lighting are. If 100% of the light (light = power = money = wasted resources) doesn't hit the ground, it is bad designing.Of course part of me as the former backyard astronomer would love to see light poullution reduced just to bring back the night skies to more urban locations, I also see it as a huge waste of resources and money.From the astronomical point of view, here are a couple linkshttp://www.darksky.org/mc/page.dohttp://www.rasc.ca/light/I've read that it's esimated that 1 billion dollars is wasted each year in the US alone on inefficient night lighting!

[Guest PARADISE]

Earth Hour didn't accomplish anything for "saving" energy.....and never will. You see, much of the population that turned their lights out went to bed for an hour and many couples did what couples like to do best when in bed.......in the dark..........for an hour of peace. They spent their energy making more little energy users in the future. So, while forcing the population to be in the dark may save energy for an hour or so......in the long run it will only increase the population of energy users. Thus increasing the very problem it was designed to elliminate. Want to really save energy?.........Buy condoms.......or keep the lights ON.

[Guest zzmikezz]

DK8290,Just think of the billions of dollars that could be saved if houses were reduced to one-room shacks. They would have 1/5th the floor space, and with everybody huddled together at night in a single bed, there would be no need for anything but wood stoves ...... Oops, I can't say would stoves, they would pollute the air ...But you get my drift. If we are to take conservation to its logical conclusion we end up with watermelon politics -- green on the outside, red on the inside.The capitalist freedom to consume inevitably is accompanied by the capitalist freedom to waste, and the only way to truly do away with waste is to do away with consumption and production.

[Guest]

The problem with those vehicles is that they're highly impractical.Electric cars you need to plug in for 14 hours a day to give you a range of under 100 miles (can you imagine all the cables running across every sidewalk in the world? Copper thieves will have a field day, as will the lawyers sueing everyone because someone stumbled over a cable and hurt her knee). And the line losses between the powerstation and your home mean you're burning more fuel than had you used a gasoline powered engine.Hydrogen powered cars that need to fuel up every 40 miles and have such massive tanks that in a car the size of a Hummer there's room for a driver with maybe a small child."bio diesel" and ethanol that requires all the woods in the world to be cut down to supply just the US with enough corn and sugar cane to make all that fuel.And all those fuels are no better "for the environment" than gasoline either. The emissions may be of different composition and/or produced elsewhere, but they're still there.There is no viable alternative to the fossil fuel burning internal combustion engine.That's why those projects don't go anywhere, not some conspiracy.I have a hybrid on order myself. But not for the fuel savings (zero for me, as if I'd not bought it I'd have gone for a one model smaller model car using about the same amount of fuel).It's because of the massive tax incentive the government here put in place to encourage people to buy hybrids (and fuel efficient cars in general).50% reduction in road taxes,

[Guest DK8290]

Just think of the billions of dollars that could be saved if houses were reduced to one-room shacks. They would have 1/5th the floor space, and with everybody huddled together at night in a single bed, there would be no need for anything but wood stoves----------------------I think it's a bit of a stretch from bringing up the fact that the vast majority of night lighting is extremely badly designed and what you just mentioned.If aircraft and automobiles were so badly designed (ie, hole in the fuel tank allowing half the fuel to leak out = half the night light going into the air uselessly) it would seem obvious to more people how badly things were designed.I really can't see why people would argue about the inefficiency of a design. Having logically thought out night lighting would not only save money and resources but reduce glare and improve safety for drivers and pedestrians. ----------------------------------The capitalist freedom to consume inevitably is accompanied by the capitalist freedom to waste, and the only way to truly do away with waste is to do away with consumption and production.----------------------------------Pointless waste is just not smart and I'm not advocating going and living in a cave to avoid using resources. I just find the statement above doesn't make any sense at all.

[Guest zzmikezz]

DK8290,You wrote "... really can't see why people would argue about the inefficiency of a design. Having logically thought out night lighting would not only save money and resources but reduce glare and improve safety for drivers and pedestrians."You might want to take this up with your local traffic engineers, who may have come to conclusions quite different from your own regarding the inefficiency and safety issues.Remember, the traffic engineers aren't morons. They drive the same streets you do, at the same times of day and night, and they have the same desire to get there and back safely that you do.

[michal 44]

>Having logically thought out night>lighting would not only save money and resources but reduce>glare and improve safety for drivers and pedestrians. That would help. But in terms of pollution & use of natural resources 100 times more effective would be using power from nuclear plants. Unfortunately all these 'save planet' environmentalists are usually vehemently against nuclear power - making them hypocrites.Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg

[Guest]

>>>Having logically thought out night>>lighting would not only save money and resources but reduce>>glare and improve safety for drivers and pedestrians. >>That would help. But in terms of pollution & use of natural>resources 100 times more effective would be using power from>nuclear plants. Unfortunately all these 'save planet'>environmentalists are usually vehemently against nuclear power>- making them hypocrites.>That's because their real goal is not "green energy" but no energy, a return to a medieval agricultural society "in synch with nature" without any industry, medicine, or anything else.And the real nutters want to go further back, to a stone age society of nomadic hunter/gatherers living in total harmony with nature, only taking what animals don't want and plants don't need.The leadership of both groups realise that this will require that the planet be largely depopulated, leaving only a few hundred thousand people alive at most (themselves of course).The large masses of course don't realise this, see only the propaganda about how "industry" is evil and using any natural resource is a sin.And I use both words deliberately, as to these people (or many of them) this is indeed a religion, even if they themselves don't necessarilly realise it.

[dmaher 0]

...I could go either way on the medieval society :D

[Guest]

I'll take the role of leader of the inquisition, you can be my trusted confessor.