Will you be participating in 'Earth Hour' ?

[troppo]

Um...bear in mind it's not yet 8 in some places in Aus.
I'm actually getting a call out to go into PowerWater and turn the lights off for an hour, but I have no interest in doing it at home.

[DBourne]

i did, not as if it took a lot of effort to turn the lights off in the house for an hour?
i still sat on my pc reading forums so didnt really notice

[TadKa]

Originally Posted by AUXRVIII

It's a "lights out" earth hour, not an "switch off and unplug everything" earth hour. I didn't make any mention of support for or against on the issue.
I was interested in reading what people were doing to contrbute. I guess I wasn't surprised with what I read.

So its done a fantastic job of raising awareness of 'global warming' and saving resources then. or are we seriously just meant to turn our lights of for an hour and that will solve all the worlds problems?

[Pinch]

Yeah I did it, not because it will make any difference to emissions from power generation as I am pretty sure they didn't reduce the base load generation, but because it shows that I am at least thinking of the issue. I do try and keep my power down ALL the time, cause thats the only thing that affects base load (and thus emissions) generation.

When I renovated my house, I paid some attention to environmental issues. The car that also gets daily driven the most in our house is the 7L/100k Mini (wife). I share my long silver commuter vehicle with about 1000 others (it is a bit unreliable though). I drive a Prius occassionaly as a work car so definately won't buy one, but am a bit happier that our mainly used car is pretty light on resources. We don't need a big car all the time and can afford a few so its all good, others do need a big car so I in no way begrudge that.

Earth Hour was simply a symbolic thing for us and just a good excuse to light some candles, enjoy a drink and watch the cool light show that Sydney put on in the heavens.

[Feral Ford]

As all I've done today is sit here watching vids & reading the forum, I hadn’t left the lounge, (still haven’t). As such I have yet to turn a light on today especially since it’s still reasonably light outside.
There, I did do my bit - NO LIGHTS.
Dont know if it really counts though as my 17" laptop overheats and shuts down after a while so I have my portable aircon pouring a continuous supply of 17° air into it. Helps keep to lounge nice & comfortable as well.

[TadKa]

Feel free to read about the many ways candles are bad for the environment

http://www.wisegeek.com/are-candles-...nvironment.htm

[XD 351 Ute]

Heh, some awesome posts here.
I did my bit, watched a DVD instead of a normal TV station so that they could turn off for an hour.
But they didn't, and when I checked, there was an advert for the Earth Hour!!!!!

I already have the new fangled bulbs, turn stuff off if not using it, etc, etc.
So my Earth Hour is broken up into little bits every day of the week.
I don't need a gimmick to remind me of looking after the planet, I try to do my bit anyway.

Ed

[andrewts]

I turned off my house lights, and went for drive instead, making sure I had my headlights on high beam, rode the brakes to get those lights going and had the interior light on. I also popped the boot to get that light going.

I looked like an idiot, but I felt like a king.

[Jeeepers]

Gee... Was this yesterday? Damn, guess I'll have to wait for next year to waste my time.

[iCat]

Originally Posted by Pinch

Earth Hour was simply a symbolic thing for us and just a good excuse to light some candles, enjoy a drink and watch the cool light show that Sydney put on in the heavens.

You got the right idea.

[exrtnz]

Why dont they stop the coal power stations all over the country for an hour, that may have a slight impact, if they dont do that everyone might as well leave everything on and turn up the AC, a few houses will do sweet F A.

[Yaw]

Well, I did turn lights off and appliances for that matter, Not that this is unusal for me, the only exception last night was we went out to Bartley's look out to see the town go dark, and when we left home we turned off the outside light we would usually leave on when we go out.

We got to Bartleys Hill at Albion in Brisbane and O.K we saw thye story bridge and gateway and the Suncorp clock go out, but for the most part it was a non event. It was rather a dissapointing effort on behalf of Brisbane especially as Albion Park Raceway (trots) which bartleys hill overlooks seemed to have put EXTRA lights on to mark the occasion. The crowd at Bartleys hill had from what I heard most people calling it a ****poor effort.

I know 1 hour won't help much, but it is an important start to get the realisation up to even turn lights off when you leave a room.

[ELtim]

We turned our lights off but had the computer and tv running.

Most of our neighborhood participated.

[mcflux]

I turned all my lights on, the oven (despite being gas), and the other two computers, just to the gf who thinks Earth Hour makes a difference

[Feral Ford]

Originally Posted by exrtnz

Why dont they stop the coal power stations all over the country for an hour, that may have a slight impact, if they dont do that everyone might as well leave everything on and turn up the AC, a few houses will do sweet F A.

I think you have got something there, if we all crank up our aircons at the same time this should reverse global warming. :

[uranium_death]

I completely forgot about Earth Hour.

But in my room, all I ever have on is my computer (and monitor), TV, Stereo (sound for tv) and maybe my fluorescent desk lamp if I'm eating.

[troppo]

For me, the most interesting thing about Earth Hour was the amount of energy wasted in order for PowerWater to participate.

They have a newish office building only refurbished a couple of years ago and they have Clipsal's C-Bus to control the lighting. At first I was pretty impressed with what C-bus can do but it does have some shortcomings....an obvious one being you need to be familiar with the system to overide it in order to participate in things like Earth Day, or pay someone like me to come in and do it for you. So, the first instance of energy wasted specifically for Earth Day would be my drive in to turn the lights off....x 2 (it's only 5 mins away and took 5mins to do...I wasn't gonna sit there for a whole hour).

For those that don't know C-bus, motion detectors can be used instead of switches to turn lights on and off and they are used in this building all through the admin area. They run on a timer after that and the timer resets each time movement is detected, so they come on in the mornings when there is movement and turn off 20mins after the last movement is detected in the evenings.

So, when I got there and enetered the building, rows of lights turned on as I walked around to the various locations to manually override the system. Only for a short time though...I was done in 5 mins BUT, when I went back after Earth Hour and put the system back into auto, each time I left the control box, my movement turned on lights on my way out of that area until I got to the next control zone. So by the time I got around and turned them all back on, a fair chunk of the building was lit up with times ranging from 15-20 mins left on the timers.

Energy saved by turning off lights for an hour V's Energy wasted by the c-bus system turning on 4x the number of lights for 20mins......hmmm. Admittedly, the large floods in the yard have a significantly higher power consumption.

An amusing side note to c-bus, this building asked for switches as well as the motion detectors in all the offices, so they could have the option of manually switching them off and save the 20mins run on time. What they found is the 360 degree detectors are good enough to detect the extraction of your hand from through the office door (after having reached in to turn off the lights) and immediately start the 20min timer again

[bob 351]

ahh look it's been 15 hour's since earth hour

isnt the earth such a better place today wars deaths famines floods drought's so on so on
such bliss

[TadKa]

Originally Posted by bob 351

ahh look it's been 15 hour's since earth hour

isnt the earth such a better place today wars deaths famines floods drought's so on so on
such bliss

Yeah even that rash on my has cleared up

[hypnodoc]

I won't buy into any of this Tree Hugging, WWF, Greenie Fascists nonsense : . I turned everything ON FOR 3 HOURS and plugged in extra stuff.
It's getting very dangerous this global warming con. Soon we are going to see the effects of farming and manfacturing restrictions, mixed in with carbon trading taxes. Who's gonna pay. WE ARE. And all for something that has no credible scientific evidence at all. IPCC WWF and UN inspired nonsense. Carbon Footprint MY AR$E

[SVTVNM]

Looking at the Herald sun and there is 2 pictures of Melbourne one at 7:45pm and one at 8:20pm It seems to me all the light that were on in the first photo are on in the second photo the only diff i that one is at dusk and the othe rat night givibg the impression of darkness. Also on the news this morning one city not sure wich but they had fireworks, just curious in fireworks burn clean, I doubt it!.

[blk_frmnt]

Originally Posted by TadKa

Yeah even that rash on my has cleared up

For once I'm actually glad a word was censored...

[TUF_302]

I was going to but was over at the neighbours and we was all drunk and forgot about it lol!!

[gtfpv]

NO , I wont be participating in earth hour .
nor will i be buying FART CREDITS, when they are for sale .

[Nikked]

I kept my lights on, simply because Earth hour is a load of faeces, supported buy social trend followers trying to act like they care and to be globally responsible by jumping on a brand of alarmist climate change hype.

I’m no expert but the PowerStation’s would of still ran their generators as they normally would at any Saturday at 8pm, only this time we have these people turning off their lights only to light candles and kero lamps...thus in turn spilling more carbon into the air. :

[Geez Louise]

I participated in Earth Day today. Getting new power poles on our street. Power was off from 8am till 7.30pm

[daniel_rossy]

Originally Posted by davway

doesnt look like i am.
infact i even found a few more appliances i can plug in.
BRB.

grow up

[daniel_rossy]

Originally Posted by AUXRVIII

What a surprise, a thread full of posts by secondary school kids.

Agreed, im suprised because i think im the only secondary school kid in this forum and everyone older is too immature to think about chipping in. Some people...

Well i think that people in this forum could actually chip in to help this. It is global. Lots of businesses did it, including lots of fast food outlets including McDonalds.
Its not just the fact of turning of your electricity for 1 hour, its reminding you that its good for the enviroment to turn the lights off any day or night of the week.
im suprised that we have so many close minded people who think they should be funny and use more appliances. Seriously, grow up, no one really cares that your plugging in a few appliances or setting flood lights out the front yard. You may have a good laugh and feel more anti-conformist about yourself but you could atleast help your fellow man. Some people put alot of time and effort into this and just by being a funny smart a$$ and going to turn a few extra lights on is just immature. Grow up. :

[andrewts]

Originally Posted by daniel_rossy

Agreed, im suprised because i think im the only secondary school kid in this forum and everyone older is too immature to think about chipping in. Some people...

No No I'm a "secondary" school student...

...but I'm smart enough to tell a load of bullshite when I see one.

[daniel_rossy]

Originally Posted by andrewts

No No I'm a "secondary" school student...

...but I'm smart enough to tell a load of bullshite when I see one.

Haha yeah i know some people were joking but some were actually serious.