Slashdot Mirror
World Cities Go Dark For 'Earth Hour' Climate Campaign (afp.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the AFP:
Earth Hour, which started in Australia in 2007, is being observed by millions of supporters in 187 countries, who are turning off their lights at 8.30pm local time in what organisers describe as the world's "largest grassroots movement for climate change"... In Paris, the Eiffel Tower plunged into darkness as President Emmanuel Macron urged people to join in and "show you are willing to join the fight for nature". "The time for denial is long past. We are losing not only our battle against climate change, but also our battle against the collapse of biodiversity," he said on Twitter. Moscow's Red Square also fell dark and the Russian section of the International Space Station dipped its lights, the Ria Novisti news agency said... UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the event "comes at a time of huge pressure on people and planet alike. Resources and ecosystems across the world are under assault. Earth hour is an opportunity to show our resolve to change."
Other landmarks "going dark" include the Empire State Building in New York and the Sydney Opera House, as well as the harbour skylines of Hong Kong and Singapore.
Other landmarks "going dark" include the Empire State Building in New York and the Sydney Opera House, as well as the harbour skylines of Hong Kong and Singapore.
The important people who get to travel from international city to another important city can then
enjoy the virtue signalling about what they made their city do.
That their city was part of a global effort to go back to the dark ages. To make nations be like some third world nation.
Just the first step in getting large groups of people political active.
Finding out who can sway politics and make a city not support a normal service.
The first event is for nature, something that is easy to get support for.
The next part will be party political.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This is a tiny blip in total energy use. Long-term changes, both in personal behavior and systemic society aspects needs to occur. Individuals can use more public transit, eat less meat, not keep the heat up really high in winters, etc. But personal changes are not enough. If one wants to help directly with helping reducing CO2 production then donating to solar and wind charities is the best bet. For solar, the best two seem to be Everybody Solar https://www.everybodysolar.org/ (which gets solar panels for non-profits like museums and homeless shelters), and the Solar Electric Light Fund https://self.org/ which gets solar panels for people in developing countries. I'm not 100% sure on an ideal charity for wind, but one good one is the New England Wind Fund https://www.massenergy.org/the-wind-fund . Finally, if one wants to directly reduce CO2 in the short-term, then the best bet is simply directly donating to Cool Earth https://www.coolearth.org/. In terms of maximum reduction of CO2 per a dollar, Cool Earth is unambiguously the best so if one wants to engage in carbon offsets that's best. A typical American lifestyle can offset their entire yearly carbon budget for about $500 (this won't be the case indefinitely though, as if Cool Earth gets more than about another order of magnitude of funding, the diminishing marginal returns will be start mattering).