Talk or action?

Labour seems to be all talk and no action on green issues. Not that any of the others are likely to be much of an improvement. I think Labour lost its soul when Tony Blair cosied up to big business, but that's hardly news.

See what they haven't done here . No wonder we're all so damned cynical.

France - electricity consumption down 1%

An article in Le Point claims that electricity consumption was down 1% on normal usage, i.e. about 800 megawatts.

Click on title for details.

See the lights switched off

BBC video of some of the cities from Sydney to Paris as the lights go off.

Scotland takes part

Scotland is also taking part in Earth Hour's switch-off

From Sydney - to the world

Report in the Sydney Morning Herald

This year, exceeding the wildest dreams of its organisers, participation (in Earth Hour) has swollen to an estimated 1 billion people in 83 countries. Of them, 47 were developing economies, up from nine last year.

Earth Hour 2009

This has received rather more publicity this year - I've heard it mentioned three times on the BBC radio News this morning, including a short interview.

There is an article on their website, too.

In Europe the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and Edinburgh Castle will be in darkness for one hour.

A symbol, indeed, but an important one.

Though there are dedicated environmentalists such as George Marshall, founder of the Climate Information Outreach Network , and the blog who argues against this action, as ineffective and likely to resonate badly with the unconvinced, to whom darkness is a Bad Thing, associated with death, decay and privation.

And there are plenty of 'rebels' posting on the comments threads, pledging to leave all their appliances ON.

Baby steps does it.

According to a contact in Australia, during this year's Earth Hour 'the saving was equivalent to two power stations being temporarily out of service.'

Last year it was a Sydney-based event. This year it has gone global. According to the BBC link in the previous post, (which keeps changing some of the details) Chicago and San Francisco took part, along with Bangkok, Manila, Toronto and Dublin. New Zealand joined in as well. In Bangkok they saved 73.34 megawatts of electricity, which would have produced 45.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

In Britain, a number of villages arranged their own lights-out, although there has been no big publicity. 26 councils dimmed lights. I don't know which they were. On the south coast, Brighton turned off the lights on its pier, and in London - which was not officially involved - lights were turned down at City Hall.

Next year, will there be more? I guess it's our call.

Earth Hour did happen

Thanks BBC again - you publicise it after the event, for those who are looking. I didn't find much about it beforehand. I wonder why the UK doesn't really do this sort of thing.

Anyway, you can link to Earth Hour 2009 and year-long action against climate change at this world wildlife fund link .

Energy Saving Day? Oops!

I blinked and I missed it.
The first I heard about E-Day was when someone mentioned it on Writers' Dock at 7.20pm, almost an hour and a half after it was supposed to start. I don't listen to radio or watch TV as much as I used to, so it could just be that I was ill-informed. However it seems to have been one of the biggest non-events in recent months.

I quote from the article on the BBC website . My comments are in bold type.

The E-Day concept started life as Planet Relief, an awareness-raising BBC TV programme with a significant comedy element.
Why do we have to have comedy with everything ?
But in September the BBC decided to pull the project, saying viewers preferred factual or documentary programmes about climate change.
Thanks, guys.
The decision came after poor audiences for Live Earth, and public debate over whether it was the corporation's role to "save the planet". Dr Prescott then decided to see whether he could mount E-Day as an independent operation, and secured the backing of important partners such as the National Grid and the UK's major energy companies.
As though we're going to do what these people suggest, when we're constantly bombarded with information about how much money they make out of us.

Funny how we're all so ready to complain about the cost of energy and the price of fuel, when one of the reasons we pay so much, is simply that we waste so much.

Now E-Day has been such a flop, I guess it will turn into a joke. We have such a cool sense of humour:
'Ho ho, let's make today energy wasting day.'
'I'm going to switch everything on at once for an hour.'

Well, I hope Earth Hour has more success. Or don't we care at all? (See my blog January 25th)

Earth Hour

I've just been reading about Earth Hour - at 8pm on March 29th anywhere in the world, you turn your lights and other electrical appliances off for one hour. It may be just a token gesture towards greenness, to raise awareness of how we could do something to help slow global warming, but in Sydney last year it cut energy consumption by about 10% for the hour.
I felt great about the idea, until I thought of my internet addiction. First thing in the morning, last thing at night and most stations in between.
But we could always play Scrabble by candlelight.

Nuclear Power?

It's back on the agenda.

The miracle cheap clean energy that will allow us to carry on using our ever more powerful gadgets, and our H-D televisions. And of course our computers. (Guilty, m'lud.)

The miracle energy with one huge drawback - how do we keep the waste safe for several thousand years?

There has been no major accident since Tchernobyl, but there have been reports of leaks and leukemia clusters.

How much of our energy will it produce? How much will it cost? How can we be sure the companies will pay for the eventual decommissioning and safe disposal of waste?


Why can't we do as well as Germany on the renewable energy front?

Power

Well, just electricity, this time. But so powerful was the power cut which shut down my computer without a moment's warning, that I actually stood up, walked downstairs and made soup for lunch.
No ignition spark, so I used matches; no overhead hob light; no toaster, so I made croutons in a frying pan; no liquidiser, so we ate the soup chunky.
The cut lasted no more than 90 minutes, but was inconvenient, and a salutary reminder of how much I rely on the juice to flow.
Hell, I almost got out my pen and notebook...