Flashaholics rejoice! Earth Hour 2008 is coming!

[Fusion_m8]

5 more days to go until Earth Hour 2008! Coincendentally, we CPFers here in Melbourne, Australia will also be holding our CPF meet on the night... thats gonna be interesting.

 

[BigBluefish]

See my sig.

Maybe I'm just too cynical.

Now, what would make things really interesting, is if after the hour is up, they can't get the lights back ON. :candle:

 

[Fusion_m8]

Melbourne, Australia GMT +11.00hrs.

Taken from theage.com.au:

"Lights were turned off across Australia tonight as Melbourne and other capital cities observed Earth Hour, the greenhouse awareness initiative. Dozens of key buildings in the nation's capitals and many individuals around the country turned off their lights, including iconic Melbourne buildings such as Flinders Street Station, Federation Square."



SouthBank before lights turned off.

Southbank after lights turned off

Federation Square moments before lights turned off

Federation Square after lights turned off

 

[Aircraft800]

Did anything happen? The only thing I saw was a BUNCH of environmentally unfriendly alkaline batteries being burned and eventually being thrown in the trash :mecry: hardly noticed any lights off

 

[jzmtl]

Did anything happen? The only thing I saw was a BUNCH of environmentally unfriendly alkaline batteries being burned and eventually being thrown in the trash :mecry: hardly noticed any lights off

Earth hour is BS to begin with, what do you expect to come out of it?

 

[270winchester]

the tower and the highrises don't look very safe for low flying airplanes.

 

[WadeF]

This is the dumbest event ever. I'm sure this will end up wasting a lot more energy and resources than if it was never done.

 

[Cydonia]

A few decorative lights were turned off

I agree this is all bunk and a PR ploy to get people thinking about lights and energy waste etc., but all it will take is one high profile crime or accident to result from the gloom and the idea will be killed off. Amateur astronomy buffs were going to see if there was any sky glow reduction - I doubt it would be even noticeable. It will be interesting to read their findings. Anyone else interested can browse the largest astro forum here.

 

[smvtsailor]

Google "turned the lights out" - look at their homepage!

I've got my flashlights all primed and ready...

 

[Fusion_m8]

Earth hour is BS to begin with, what do you expect to come out of it?

I dunno about the environmental impact it had:thinking:, probably did squat...but hey, I had heaps of fun dazzling my neighbours with my collection of flashlights!!! Don't assume I'm the greenie type, but any opportunity to fang my Surefire M4 won't be missed!!!

As for my thoughts on global warming: I believe we've screwed this planet way pass the point of safe return anyway, we might as well enjoy the ride while we still can!

 

[Aircraft800]

We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn - Earth Hour.

 

[Stereodude]

Of all the worthwhile causes someone could have brought attention to instead... :sigh:

 

[Stereodude]

I dunno about the environmental impact it had:thinking:, probably did squat...but hey, I had heaps of fun dazzling my neighbours with my collection of flashlights!!! Don't assume I'm the greenie type, but any opportunity to fang my Surefire M4 won't be missed!!!

It's past 8pm here and it's still twilight, so the dazzling wouldn't be very effective. :mecry:

 

[KingGlamis]

Phoenix is supposed to be joining in on this stunt. I'm tempted to turn on every light in the house. All the local talk show hosts have been telling everyone to do just that in protest. :thumbsup: But I won't. Lights on or lights off isn't going to make a difference either way.

Last time I checked everyone gets an electricity bill, so we're all pretty aware that lights use electricity. Heck, most of our parents were telling us to turn off the lights in the house when we were kids.

And those pics from Australia are hilarious! Hardly any lights got shut off. And think of all the pollution those enviros caused by DRIVING to that event in their cars.

It's beyond me why every building in the world, both houses and businesses, doesn't have the entire roof covered in solar panels. If everyone used solar power the cost for solar panels would come down tremendously and we wouldn't need to build any new powerplants.

 

[WildChild]

Actually, in places like in Québec, closing the lights for 1 hour actually generates more pollution than what is save in electricity. Almost all the electricity is produced by hydro-electric dam and it's winter time. Closing the light means less heat generated by bulbs and more need to heat using wood, gaz, fuel to keep the temperature... This is also a reason why compact fluorescent have no advantages over incandescent bulbs during winter time! More mercury will go in the environment over time than with incandescent bulb because our dams do not reject mercury in the air, unlike coal power plant.

 

[kramer5150]

IMHO its nothing more than just a big PR stunt. However, if (somehow) it gets manufacturers and researchers to put more R/D dollars into LED technologies... that is a win win all around.:twothumbs

 

[PharmerMike]

Earth Hour worked!

It's only 32 degrees in Ohio on March 29 and there's lots of snow on the ground.

Please don't turn your lights off for TWO hours- I don't want a blizzard.

 

[tebore]

This has got to be one of the worst ideas I've seen or at least the way it was implemented was retarded.

Quote from the radio: Turn off your lights for an hour. Have handy your flashlight or candle.

WHY WHY Would you turn off more efficient lighting for battery powered lights(Remember this ain't CPF around the world so it's like 5lm/watt dim crap)

So much more waste was generated. Those stupid flyers to promote this, the batteries in those lights and the concert.

All this did for me was made me realize HOLY CRAP Toronto has a lot of Street lights. We either don't need that many (space them further apart) or we really should start switching to LEDs(even if the unit produced half the light at a quarter the power it's still too bright).

 

[276]

didn't even know about it till about 20 minutes ago. I was wonder why googles lights were off, wish my town would shut off the lights

 

[e2x2e]

Haw haw greenies are so funny. I did run around my house playing with flashlights, turning off all my lights(the ones mounted on the ceiling) off, and chanting "it's Earth hour!" Google was cool too. But it does nothing to "save the world", obviously.