Exactly the right attitude. The thing I like about earth hour is the idea of everyone doing it simultaneously. Just shutting down and emerging from their lairs. It has the makings of a pretty cool experience, especially if you live in an urban environment with all the lights going out. Forget the hype and prejudice, it doesn't even have to be about environmentalism. We're here on the same planet and we're all in this together.
We have plenty of potential energy here in America we could either go get (oil/natural gas) or create (nuclear), but it's the hippies that have constantly prevented it. I'm for conservation and preserving nature, but the hole Earth Hour/Day thing is nothing but a side joke.
oh man, some people in this thread are just hilarious, I always love reading posts like (im turning on ALL my lights because I'm a rebel! Anyways, it's an amazing sight to see city skylines suddenly shut down and their silhouettes in the dusk sky, while millions of people participate in the largest climate change awareness initiative in the world. My siblings and I were out for a walk, we shut down the entire house, and just walked around out back on the trail admiring how dark everything was, and that people actually volunteered to do this, it was pretty cool. I do this almost every day, I go for mountain bike rides through the trails just out side of town where there are no houses or anything, its very relaxing and nice to get away from it all. I like browsing the internet from time to time and reading what other people are thinking about and stuff, but a lot of people are on here so much, its actually pretty sad (like one of my brothers (not the one who came for a walk on earth hour) who does absolutely nothing and is now on medication for depression because he can't get away from the computer screen. I managed to drag him out on a bike ride a few months ago in january when it was warmer out and there wasn't a lot of snow on the trails, but he got mad before he left cuz he couldn't find his phone to bring with him, he wouldn't leave without it cuz he can't cope without it or something crazy shit, I dunno, I'll never understand it, but anyways. Earth hour is cool, and I love doing my part and watching others participate as well (especially seeing large land marks like the petronas towers, and cn tower go almost totally dark) The whole point is to raise awareness, and it definitely works. It ALWAYS gets people talking, positively or negatively as shown in this thread, and I look forward to it every year I always do my part to help out the earth as best I can, I ride my mountain bike to work almost every single day (except when there's too much snow and I can't physically ride in it, or it's storming and I'll get soaked cuz I don't wanna get soggy wet and have to work for 8 hours cuz that just sucks) So maybe 4 or 5 days out of the year I get a ride to work. I recycle everything possible, and try to keep my garbage to a minimum, I carry around my backpack all the time, so when im shopping, my items go in my backpack, not bags that im just gonna throw out as soon as I get home. I have LED lights that I use every night, and compact florescent lights that I use when cooking and whenever I need more light to see what im doing, but generally its always pretty dark in my house at nights. I spent extra money on rechargeable batteries for my bike lights and flashlights and stuff so im not just throwing out batteries when they die. And just what ever I can think of at the time, I think to my self "do I really need this", 90% of the time I don't.
Yeah, shut the hell up ya damn hippies. Go watch Bio-Dome or some shit. Also, Autobot-Girl is right about this being redundant.
Is that honestly the best counter-argument you can come up with? How do you expect anyone to ever take you seriously when you express an opinion that way? If I wasn't already a damn dirty hippie myself, I'd become one just to spite your inability to articulate a train of thought worth reading. I think this one deserves a pic Although this one was a close second.
Oh yes. Ha Ha Ha. You are so terribly clever with your little facepalm pictures. You're right to say that I didn't provide a longer response. I didn't do that because to be honest, I don't give a shit and I sure as hell don't care to write out an essay on here about climate change and global warming. It's just the newest and latest thing for liberals to make money off of. That's what this is largely about. It's just another way to make money. Go buy a new hybrid car, buy new appliances, buy this, buy that. You're doing it for the earth! It's all bullshit and I won't have a part in it. So you can sit there on your high horse and tell us all about how much smarter and more compassionate you are than every one else on earth because you ride a bicycle and bum rides off of your friends (whom I assume you don't tell that they shouldn't have cars as you are using them for rides). But at the end of the day, this is an internet message board and it doesn't really matter.
I'm tired of this "green' crap. It's costing our country money for something that humans have no controll over. I think that anyone who thinks humans can controll the climate of the entire planet are arrogant and they think themselves too important. We could use the money we save from this scam to get better education or pay off debt, especially now since the Democracks got their health care and put us in more debt. WHAT?!?!?!? Turning off light has nothing to do with standing up for or taking pride in our country! Does it prevent terrorism or protect infrustructure? NO! /rant
Actually, "green" technologies and products create tons of new jobs to replace ones that have been outsourced, as many "green" areas require significant and constant research (which employs scientists, engineers, etc.) and advanced technological processes in manufacturing which are only possible (at this point) domestically (which creates manufacturing, transport, marketing, sales, and other jobs). The adaptation of industry and society to "greener" technologies often carries an initial cost, but in the long term is accompanied by not only environmental benefits, but cost savings overall in terms of energy use, material use, waste disposal costs, etc. So there's more reasons to go to newer, "greener" tech than just the nebulous spectre of global warming. As for preventing terrorism and protecting infrastructure... Someone could post a whole essay about the links between foreign energy reliance and current political issues, but discussion of politics is not allowed on this board, a point you've apparently missed. Assuming you're not meaning the protection of infrastructure in terms of security, but in terms of a bigger picture, "green" technology also leads to benefits in that regard as well. "green" upgrades to current infrastructure would allow the public to capitalize on the long term cost savings I mentioned earlier, which would free up money for even further infrastructure upgrades. Furthermore, other "green" ideals, such as reduced use of personal automobiles, would prolong the useful lifespan of public roads and highways, while conservation of electricity would extend the effective lifespan of numerous power plants and electricity transfer systems. Buying local products, rather than imported goods again reduces traffic on roads, and also strengthens local businesses, and in doing so supports the local infrastructure.
Point taken!... but it seems that, that's all we hear about and I just can't take that humans are in control of the climate. If they put the publicity focus more on: creating jobs or doing things better then in the past, points of view. I would be more inclined to listen, but I'm not going to put money down directly to "stop global warming" per-say.
I mean this as an honest question- can we be certain of this? These technologies are so new, it's hard to say for certain how they will work out in the future. Take for example ethanol. It was suppoed to help stretch oil reserves and be better for cars and the environment as well as being cheaper and more sustainable. However, it's ended up not being too different from regular fuel, as well as being difficult to manufacture and driving up the prices on corn.
well like with any developing technology, it's hard to say where it will go. When the internet was being developed no one fully envisioned how it would change everything. There were probably times when it seemed like a waste of money. Which is not to say that all investment in technology will pay off so spectacularly, but investing in energy would seem like a pretty good bet if done right. The thing about ethanol and corn is corn is actually a pretty lousy fuel crop. The way I heard it was being pushed by lobbyists for the big agribusiness interests that are heavily invested in corn. So there's a bit of a market distortion there. Sugar cane is a vastly better source for ethanol.
The technologies in question here have either been around for decades themselves, are based on principles that are well understood and have been for decades, or operate on a short enough term that we'll know relatively quickly if there's issues in their product life cycle. Case in point, solar cells. Based on research published in the 1880s, and they've actually been around now for more than 50 years. The designs continue to improve in efficiency and cost, but realistically, there's little that can go wrong in the process. In the vast majority of cases, good engineering design is able to determine any problems that might come up before the device goes into production. The problem with ethanol is that it was a terrible fuel source to begin with, and that the rise in corn price as a result was an economic/public policy problem, rather than technological one. There was a push for ethanol based fuels (despite their issues), and it became more profitable to sell the corn as fuel than for food. Corn is traditionally a cheap food, hence its use in many processed food products. What issues, you ask? Well, the sugar content in corn is relatively low, meaning there's less sugars that can ferment into ethanol to begin with. Thus, sugar cane or fruits would be better sources of ethanol. Furthermore, only the corn kernals can be used, meaning the cob, husk, silk, and plant are worthless in terms of ethanol production, and consume so much energy and nutrients during growth that the ethanol never "breaks even" in terms of energy to produce vs. energy yield. Also, ethanol, though cleaner burning than gasoline, still produces emissions, and is a less efficient fuel source, meaning more ethanol is required to release the same energy. Because of all these, it would be nearly impossible to replace gasoline with ethanol anyway, since there simply isn't enough ethanol to do so. Hate to say it, but the vast majority of the scientific community was unconvinced ethanol based fuels would solve many problems. A better solution would be to find ways to turn cellulose, such as corn husks, wood pulp, and other agricultural waste products into ethanol or hydrogen, which is being researched right now. Another solution would be, as I said, for people to drive less and to require less transport of goods they consume, to reduce the amount of fuel needed. Even if everyone began to drive electric cars, that electricity would still have to come from somewhere (most likely fossil and nuclear plants), so a reduction in fuel requirements is the only feasible way to make a difference right now.
