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Why Earth Hour Is a Waste of Time and Energy
An anonymous reader writes "Next Saturday from 8:30PM to 9:30PM EST is 'Earth Hour' (0:30 to 1:30 UTC on Sunday). Millions of people will be participating by shutting off their lights for an hour to show they care about the environment. However, according to this article in Slate, Earth Hour is simply 'vain symbolism,' and it won't actually save any energy — quite the opposite. Quoting: 'Notice that you have not been asked to switch off anything really inconvenient, like your heating or air-conditioning, television, computer, mobile phone, or any of the myriad technologies that depend on affordable, plentiful energy electricity and make modern life possible. If switching off the lights for one hour per year really were beneficial, why would we not do it for the other 8,759? Hypothetically, switching off the lights for an hour would cut CO2 emissions from power plants around the world. But, even if everyone in the entire world cut all residential lighting, and this translated entirely into CO2 reduction, it would be the equivalent of China pausing its CO2 emissions for less than four minutes. In fact, Earth Hour will cause emissions to increase. As the United Kingdom's National Grid operators have found, a small decline in electricity consumption does not translate into less energy being pumped into the grid, and therefore will not reduce emissions. Moreover, during Earth Hour, any significant drop in electricity demand will entail a reduction in CO2 emissions during the hour, but it will be offset by the surge from firing up coal or gas stations to restore electricity supplies afterward.'"
But I couldnt find my keyboard in the dark
Then I'm going to cut down 6 trees and key 4 people's cars.
is exactly this. Now I dont know anyone who in their right mind wants to "destroy the environment" yet for the most part, environmentalists work on a knee jerk reaction style of attack. "green" energy is too expensive to compete with proven yet "dirty" tech? well instead of developing the green tech to compete we must artificially increase the cost of the dirty fuel! we cant use plain old light bulbs anymore, that use more power (and give off heat, thus meaning one could in theory keep their heater lower) and now we are stuck with CFLs that are worse for the environment than the old bulbs!
The idea of "saving the earth" is a good one, but on the other hand, the earth will be fine long after humans inhabit it.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I thought Earth Hour was about reducing light pollution?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
It's environmentalism theater, just like we have security theater. If I turn out the lights for an hour I can say I've done "my part" to help the environment and raise awareness then go back to ignoring it the rest of the year.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Like most, if not all other enviromental efforts, it's all about talk and symbolism, and very nearly nothing about actually doing the math...
The point of Earth Hour is public awareness, to get people talking, thinking, discussing solutions. To experience one solitary hour without electricity exposes westerners to the daily hardship that billions around the world face due to lack of electricity. I'm here in Egypt, they currently have a 20% electricity generation deficit. This means that even though I may live in one of the best neighborhoods in Cairo, I experience low-shedding 1 hour every second day. My Earth Hour is every second day! So, can the hipster who doesn't have a clue who submitted this story, pull his head out of his self-important ass? You're either part of the problem, or part of the solution. Bitching about awareness of the inequality in the world as being a waste of time is being part of the problem.
If it was truly pointless and wasteful, as an American I'm pretty sure I would have heard of it before now.
Yes, Earth Hour does nothing in itself; I thought this was something that pretty well understood and didn't require *another* article written about it. The point of Earth Hour, however, is to build awareness of living in -- and contributing to -- a changing climate. That said, the feel good factor itself might be detrimental as people will feel that they have done their duty for the year. But this is currently, as far as I am aware, unsubstantiated and probably warrants actual research.
Likely as not, it would save more energy, and certainly help with human internal clocks.
From what I understand, they actually observer statistically distinct spikes in heart attacks and suicides with the time changes each year.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
So how about we listen to this post and just stop caring at all. If turning your lights off wont help then why even try, lets turn everything on full blast and leave it on.
Fuck your "Earth Hour", I will spend it standing in front of my fridge wasting energy.
That's a long time to rearrange the magnets on your fridge.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Like most, if not all other environmental efforts, it's all about talk and symbolism, and very nearly nothing about actually doing the math...
Math is hard.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Only a politician would think you could cut a foot from one end of a blanket, sew it to the other end, and have a bigger blanket.
First, I can't believe anyone takes Lomborg seriously anymore. His rantings are not based on science, and the only reason anyone noticed him in the first place was because he styled himself an "environmentalist", which he clearly isn't. Second, as other posters have pointed out, Earth Hour isn't meant to actually save any energy, it's to build public awareness. He's erected a strawman and is trying to knock it down without regard to what is real.
No sig? Sigh...
Crap like this is feel good meaningless junk science that does absolutely nothing to solve anything. This is no better than saying were going to boycott the gas stations on Sunday (and fill up on Monday). People need to get real about the environment and as long as we've got crap like this and lunatics at places like greenpeace getting the headlines were going to continue shooting ourselves in the foot. We don't need the Haliburton's of the world do the damage when we keep deluding ourselves by pulling crap like this.
Let's go shopping!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Forget CO2 levels. This is a helpful excuse to rendezvous with your lady/fellow and figure out *some* way to amuse yourselves for an hour in the dark. "Hey, it's for the good of the planet. Or whatever."
Let's run that in reverse. A small increase in energy usage, like my one, 100 watt, bulb, won't increase the amount of energy pumped into the grid, so I shouldn't have to pay for it. (It's only 100 watts)
Let's get everyone to do that! Free energy!! Perpetual Motion!!!
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Even if you did shut off things of significance, it would not make a big difference.
Anyone that understands how the power grid is run and electricity distributed, and power generation is applied could tell you that.
1) The grid itself needs a certain amount of electrification simply to remain stable and on.
2) Because power use is not constant, and various types of generation mix is different, you will have to maintain a baseline of power anyway. That nuclear plant that generates 4GW doesn't just turn off because the need no longer exists. It generates 4GW all day/night all the time regardless. One of the benefits of nuclear.
It would prevent say the usage of say quick spin up generation such as gas or coal to meet specific needs during peek generation. Or the use of potential storage like hydro during peek hours. But again, turning off the lights won't make much difference there either. If everyone turned off the AC during a heatwave, during peek usage, yeah that might make a small difference.
Anyway as pointed out, it is simply a PR campaign and an awareness thing. Anyone who believes they are actually doing something significant should be looked at with an arched eyebrow.
Yeah, I had to read that part twice because I had the same thought. What the writer seems to mean is that there won't in fact be drop in energy significant enough to step down power production and thereby save CO2. The "moreover" introduces a hypothetical possibility: i.e. even if power consumption decreased enough to step down power production, the energy wasted in stepping production down and up would outweigh the overall savings in consumption. This makes a sort of sense, but I saw no numbers in TFA to back it up, so I'll remain skeptical.
The fact that the author indulges in one non sequitur after another (why is he talking about the benefits of electricity? who's denying them? I thought the point was that our means of generating it has some drawbacks. Who's lighting candles?), often without offering evidence, leaves me even colder. The basic notion that shutting off electric lights for an hour is about making us feel good I can agree with. But I think this guy is just trolling. Maybe it makes him feel better about himself.
My area was hit by Hurricane Sandy in November and my electricity was out for a week! I think I've given my hour for quite a few years!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Well DUH! Earth hour IS symbolic. So what. In doing this, we are reminding ourselves that the world will not end if we reduce our energy consumption. We remind ourselves of how wasteful our energy use is. It encourages people to make long term adjustments to their energy consumption habits. When I see posts themed "fuck Earth Week", I am reminded of a 10 year old boy having a temper tantrum and holding his breath. That or a paid poster. The simple fact is that an economy cannot thrive long if it is based on a culture of waste. It is deeply irrational to think that waste is a positive practice. Waste of energy. Waste of financial resources. Waste of labor resources. Waste of physical resources. Wasting scarce resources makes us all poorer in the end.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
I looked into it a few years ago after staying at an "earth friendly" surf resort that didn't have elctrical power in Nicaragua. They gave everyone two candles a night and insisted it was eco-friendly.
The amount of soot, CO^2 and other bad stuff from a single candle is worse for the environment, not to mention your health, than running a 60W light bulb off electricity generated at a coal power plant in the USA. In all likelyhood a coal plant in Nicaragua is worse than the USA but I thought it was interesting...
While writing a story about Hannukah and other lighting miracles, I found that modern LEDs can run for 6 months on the equivalent of 1 day's supply of menorah oil. So if you were to attempt to illuminate your house with candles for Earth Hour, you'd consume 4000 times as much oil. Thankfully we don't do that.
Beyond Earth Hour's temporary abatement of light pollution in participating cities, earth hour is symbolic. It is also a talking point. "Wow, look at that comet, I wouldn't have seen that if we hadn't turned off the barn light." "The building's landscaping is a bit too bright, I think it looks better against a natural sky.", "Hi neighbor, would you like me to show you Jupiter and the Pleiades through this telescope." , "Hey this is fun, why don't we do it once a week?"
That is because the average person cannot in any way dent trans oceanic shipping burning bunker oil, or stop the americans and chinese from burning tonnes of coal per second. Of course its symbolic. Symbols are the only way for the average person to focus in on these earth sized problems. Christmas does not bring "good will to all mankind", however it may be enough to focus in on goodwill in your own life. Thus symbolism can bring a certain focus on the individual level to get people thinking about all the energy we use every day and what it would be like if it one day shut off / became unaffordable and we really did have to go without.
Symbolism is very important here precisely because we cannot do anything meaningful on an individual level to combat global climate change. It's all we have. I have never believed that one person giving up their car, or consuming no boxed foods makes a difference globally. I do not think that actual reduction in emissions is the idea behind earth hour. I think people that make that judgement are missing the point of it. Same as "buy nothing" day. Stuff will still get bought by someone, that's not the point, its symbolic.
*flame hat on*
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Except in this case, for some people, it does.
If the blanket is "daylight hours", then tweaking the clocks so that less of those hours occur when I am sleeping means I see more daylight hours. Of course people who get up and go to bed earlier than me could see less daylight hours or just see the timing of them moved a little. Still in the country I happen those who see more daylight hours outnumber those that see less for a net win.
Turning off air conditioning or heat for one hour will accomplish absolutely nothing. As soon as it is turned back on it still has to move or generate all the heat energy over that hour it would have otherwise. Simply put, it will have to work a little harder to catch up what it would have been doing over that hour anyway. Same with hot water heaters, dehumidifiers, refrigerators, etc. Merely putting off washing clothes, cooking, etc obviously accomplishes nothing either.
Better known as 318230.
Ask someone who does shift work on a sem-permament basis about this and you'll get a completely different answer.
"it is a bit less confusing ... for you" - so the rest of the world, having realised that consistency and accuracy is more important than the light from nearby star? How do people cope in Binary or other types of star system? Answer: They just do.
"your sundial won't work" - well my analogue TV doesn't work, along with lots of other old tech I've thrown away or re-purposed because the rest of the world moved on. I'm still better off with what I have now instead, it's called "progress". Despite governments and wars holding us back in other ways, progress still happens, and it's still a good thing. (fictional example)Your sundial probably wouldn't work that well in my Firefly-class transport, either, but I'd rather be on board exploring than not... (fictional example).
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I honestly have no idea what you mean.
A vast majority of people, the whole concept is a huge waste of time. If someone wants to have more daylight hours in their work day, wakeup just before daylight. Why move the freaking clocks? It doesn't make any sense, and it never has. Hours are just a measurement, there's nothing that says you have to be asleep at 7am. If you want to get up early because you'll get more daylight for things you're doing, get up early!
Instead we have this system where we jump the time forward or back an hour, and it serves no prupuse. It's a waste of time and energy.
If someone wants to have more daylight hours in their work day, wakeup just before daylight. Why move the freaking clocks? It doesn't make any sense, and it never has. Hours are just a measurement, there's nothing that says you have to be asleep at 7am. If you want to get up early because you'll get more daylight for things you're doing, get up early!
Sure, and if you could convince a few hundred million people to do that, you probably wouldn't be commenting on Slashdot, you'd be President of the whole planet. People are not rational, and they do not behave rationally. A person is, sure, but people as a group are not, and they never have been. You can make all the theories you want about how daylight savings was always a stupid idea, but if you forget that large groups of people are involved, and that those people won't follow the logical path, you're just wasting energy typing.
Mind you, with how cheap electricity is now, and with how much interior lighting is used anyways, it doesn't matter anymore and hasn't for decades, but it made sense at one point.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
So are you going to shift start times at arbitrary points during the year or by 30 to 90 seconds a day, depending on the time of year?
I don't want more daylight before work. I'd rather have 5 hours of light after work than 1 hour before and 4 hour after.
Larger blocks of time to do things means less time is wasted starting and stopping.
Why not move the clocks. Hours are just a measurement after all, we can change them to better suit our environment. I don't want to get up early for more daylight, I happen to want my daylight at the end of the day (heck I'm all for putting the clocks back 4 hours in winter...) and apparently enough people agree with me that large chunks of the world change their timezone in order to make that easier.
What time and energy is being wasted?
All my clocks (ok except the one the stove, which is wrong anyway) change automatically for daylight saving time and change automatically when it ends. I usually only realize we start daylight saving when I find myself getting tired a little early that first day because I got an hour less sleep without noticing.
You do realise that instead of everyone changing their schedule twice a year is less schedule changing that your idea. What if my work wants me to come in earlier, but the school doesn't want the kids that early? What if that prevents me from getting to my job on time?
Neither daylight savings nor the absence of daylight savings is extremely difficult to manage. It is that daylight savings is more difficult to manage correctly than simply changing the times you do things.
We could for example change the size of a liter of water to double the amount in summer time. People need to drink more water in summer because it's hotter. If we double the amount of a liter in the summer then we can always drink 1 liter of water and be safe from heat stroke. We could even call them "summer liters", to avoid confusion.
This is completely doable. We already have a bunch of weird units. one more won't do too much harm. We could manage it. But the point is that it would ultimately make things more confusing and create more work than just keeping the units the same and acknowledging that most people need to drink more units of water in the summer.
Having common units of measurement that don't change makes things simpler. Converting between units requires effort and introduces a risk of making mistakes.
I think Agent K said it better:
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
You must not live in the country. Typical farm and/or ranch days start at 5am and end at 8 or 9 evening. In most of the US, this means daylight savings really doesn't help anyone: the day is dark when they get up, and the sun is setting or already set when their day is done. Many of these people don't even operate by the clock, anyway: they're up an hour before dawn, and work late into the evening regardless (or work by the sun during the summer). It only really makes sense if we're talking about pre-industrial environments.
Even for commuters or people who get up around, say, 7am, there's no benefit to the "extra hour" of daylight in the morning: it's often still dark when you get to work. This is true for probably close to the entire northern half of the US.
Daylight Savings was an invention by the railroads and sold to government officials for political financial support for the purpose of simplifying train schedules around many disparate "local times" which were synchronized to the actual rising and setting of the sun. It's a ruse and serves little to no purpose beyond having distinct timezones.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Like I said, neither option is impossible to deal with. Both require some work. I am arguing that one requires less work.
"Everyone remember to set you clocks back an hour", is just as much work as "Everyone remember to set your alarm for 9am instead of 8am now". The difference is that a lot of infrastructure can be simplified, and a lot of little things become less error prone.
Losing an hour in the spring and getting an extra hour in the summer means that every time based log looks something like this twice a year:
11:58: A
11:59: B
12:00: C
11:01: D
11:02: E
When did the murder occur? 11:30pm. Was that the first time it was 11:30 that fall night or the second time? Oh that's a good question, I didn't think to write that down. I guess this trial is fucked.
Furthermore, the sunrise shifts by as much as 4 hours over the year, and we only shift by an hour for DST. Even with DST there is a 3 hour difference between sunrise in winter and in summer. If it was really so advantageous to have the sin rise at the same time everyday, why wouldn't we set our clock forward 3 times and back 3 times over the course of the year? Or at least set it forward 2 hours ahead and 2 hours back? The current implementation is inconsistent with the goal of keeping the sunrise at the same time.
Don't buy gas on such and such a day! It'll send a message! (Yeah, that people think this sort of thing helps are dumbasses who don't understand that a one day cessation of demand, even on a worldwide scale, is pointless. As people simply buy the next day or stock up in the preceding days.)
Don't use electricity for an hour! *Snore* Basically it's a load test for your grid. And an expensive one too. Nothing more.
I've got one!
All you people who want to send a REAL message!
If you're SERIOUS about this. Do the following.
Don't breed. EVER.
If you can't do that, try the following.
Don't breath for an hour. You'll be doing the world a favor.
If that's still too much to ask, here's something more fun.
Go skydiving and experience freefall for 30 consecutive minutes.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Ok, but why bother to switch back in the winter? If we stayed on PST all winter, it would get dark at 5pm instead of 4.
As the United Kingdom's National Grid operators have found, a small decline in electricity consumption does not translate into less energy being pumped into the grid, and therefore will not reduce emissions
The article didn't say, "almost zero" emission reductions, it claimed zero.
The reality is that the original article is lying by omission. Yes, if one person turns off one 100 watt bulb, the generating plants don't burn any less fuel, what happens is everyone else's bulbs get a few millionths of a volt more, and put out a few millionths more lumens. No-one notices.
If *everyone* turns off every light bulb in their house, then there should be a noticeable drop in load at the generators, and less fuel should be burned. Energy companies could also shift load from the more expensive generator stations.
Anyway, this is an example of Poe's law.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)