Earth Hour - a shining light or in the dark?

mike65

Tomorrow, Saturday 8 pm sees the latest Earth Hour following on from the hugely ignored hours of March 2007/08/09. Will you spend the time thinking about how you are saving the world, or why you are sat in the chilly gloom when you should be watching John Gormleys key note speech?

Agricola

Ill be out on the beer at that time tomorow evenin and since there will probably be no-one else at home, the house will be in darkness. So ill be doin my bit, wihtout suffering. Nice.

alwaysadub

I'll be watching something crap on telly,with the lights on.

My name is URL

It's a gimmick. How many millions are made from Earth Hour by various companies pimping it as a world-saving idea?

I'm all for enviromentalism but not the Hallmark version

admiralofthefleet

ill be in the pub, dont forget to put your clocks forward tomorrow night, fellow boards folk

alwaysadub

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

ill be in the pub, dont forget to put your clocks forward tomorrow night, fellow boards folk

does that mean we* get an extra hour in bed? Whoo hoo

*not we as in me and you, we in general

admiralofthefleet

alwaysadub wrote: »

does that mean we* get an extra hour in bed? Whoo hoo

*not we as in me and you, we in general

no, we lose an hour. the hour is gained in october

Jesus Wept

alwaysadub wrote: »

does that mean we* get an extra hour in bed? Whoo hoo

*not we as in me and you, we in general

They're going forward. You are 'losing' an hour. But not really.
Just stay in bed as long as you want, problem solved.

admiralofthefleet

The-Rigger wrote: »

They're going forward. You are 'losing' an hour. But not really.
Just stay in bed as long as you want, problem solved.

viz top tip - 'employee's, fool your boss in to thinking your alarm clock is broken by constantly turning up late for work'

alwaysadub

The-Rigger wrote: »

They're going forward. You are 'losing' an hour. But not really.
Just stay in bed as long as you want, problem solved.

Good plan,think i'll put that into action

TPD

Awfully tempting to turn on all the lights in the house for an hour. But I don't care about it enough to be spiteful.

So ehh.. take from that what you will.

For Forks Sake

The only plus side to anyone partaking in this ridiculous bout of conscience-salving is that it coincides with Gormleys speech to the Green party convention

I wonder will he be giving the speech in the dark

wolfric

how does "plunging yourself into darkness" help highlight climate change? Sure we're running out of non renewable fuels anyway and switching over to a lot of renewable ones.

"hundreds of millions of people coming together to vote for planet earth" - what a load of crap. how is that voting for planet earth.
"speaking with one voice, now is the time" "i'm voting because i care" Speaking with one voice for what? and voting for what? Nothings getting changed.

Try signing a huge petition to get a certain % of power generated to be renewable such as from wind/solar. That's change...

OutlawPete

It's a load of **** cock.

Dravokivich

i remember hearing as a kid that it's more energy efficient to leave the light on... then turning it off and on...

so why are a group of environmentalist mentalists asking us to turn the lights off and on as a protest of wasted resources due to needless energy being consumed in a manner that's an inefficient use of energy?

mike65

For Forks Sake wrote: »

The only plus side to anyone partaking in this ridiculous bout of conscience-salving is that it coincides with Gormleys speech to the Green party convention

I wonder will he be giving the speech in the dark

I'm hoping the lights will dim as a thousand scented candles are lit and the delegates pour themselves a big glass of red. Then Michael Buble comes out on stage to sing Cry me a River.

The Mad Hatter

1. It's yea, not yay. [/petpeeve]

2. I'll be reading a book. I'd do it by candlelight but for the fact I'm on the train.

Mc Love

There was a news article today that said it will use more power than save power as people turn the lights on after the hour will cause a surge in power and the most polluting stations like coal and oil will need to start up quickly or something to that affect

Mike 1972

Dravokivich wrote: »

i remember hearing as a kid that it's more energy efficient to leave the light on... then turning it off and on...

I remember hearing as a kid if I was a good boy a fat bearded man in a red suit would travel down from the north pole and come down the chimney

wolfric

if you work it out... It's only more efficient if you're turning it off and on once every 1 or 2 seconds... after that it's actually worth turning off the light. You only get a small initial burst of higher usage at the start and then it events out.

So yes... If you're switching it on off on off very very fast you use more electricity... otherwise no

bonerm

"Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese."
- Montel Burns, 1997.

The Mad Hatter

Dravokivich wrote: »

i remember hearing as a kid that it's more energy efficient to leave the light on... then turning it off and on...

Typically, turning on or off anything uses about half an hours worth of power, so the overall result will be negligible. It's not about saving power for that hour, though - it's about showing us what we don't need.

hitlersson666

Is everyone logged off now

Arnold Layne

No, I was too busy turning all the lights on in the house

The Mad Hatter

hitlersson666 wrote: »

Is everyone logged off now

It's 8:30, not 8.

stovelid

I always want to do a Jarvis through this most Michael of ideas.

Agent J

http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/systemdemand/#

Take a look for yourselves.

mike65

Exactly the same useage curve as Friday, just starting from a lower point.

Agent J

mike65 wrote: »

Exactly the same useage curve as Friday, just starting from a lower point.

Pretty much. And the same pattern as the previous 3 saturdays.

mike65

Complete fail! I'll be interested to see if the ESB or the Greens release a piece of PR noteing change in consumption.

Agent J

mike65 wrote: »

Complete fail! I'll be interested to see if the ESB or the Greens release a piece of PR noteing change in consumption.

They could. They could release a piece that said demand dropping about 8pm and kept dropping for the remainder of the evening.

Taken out of context of course it looks like a win.

chin_grin

As a protest I switched on everything in the house. I'm taking a shower while making a cup of tea and making some toast whilst the heating is on. The oul "two switches" are both down (ooh how risqué!) and posting this. There's an appliance plugged in to each and every socket of the house for good measure too.

Earth Hour.......me swiss.

bluto63

I slept through earth hour with the lights off, so I joined in