Not To Be Trusted With Knives - Latest Comments in Earth Hour

Re: Earth Hour

Jorge — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:50:04 -0000

You obviously live in some sort of fantasy world that has no lawyers in it.

Re: Earth Hour

Beth — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:01:34 -0000

@Jorge - Do you really think that's what they meant? I mean, my guess is that the average person would interpret "unnecessary lights" as "lights I'm not using right now" as opposed to truly *unnecessary* lights. Even the WWF doesn't refer to "unnecessary lights" and I'm pretty sure that they don't expect hospitals and traffic lights to be shut off. Although it would be funny if they did =)

Re: Earth Hour

Jorge — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:36:50 -0000

Necessary Lights: Street Lights. Airline Beacons. Traffic Lights. Hospitals...etc.

Re: Earth Hour

Beth — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:03:57 -0000

Hey Aunt Lynn!

I agree that raising awareness is very important first step in making change and that's why I chose to blog about Earth Hour to remind people that Earth Hour on its own isn't enough - we need to use it as a start to making more eco-friendly choices all the time.

Sheila - where did you get your information from? $50 million dollars in lost productivity by turning your lights out for 1 hr on a Saturday night?

Re: Earth Hour

Lynn Griffin — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:42:32 -0000

I took part in Earth Hour and enjoyed the peace and quiet.
Earth Hour was meant as a statement and to raise awareness of the impact we as humans have on our environment. Raising awareness is what brings about actions and what we can do to bring about changes in this world....was Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat on a bus a "thimble size" gesture ...maybe so but it was the catalyst that brought about much needed change. Any time a voice is raised to make people aware and promotes action is doing good. We as consumers are able to make an active choice rather than having changes forced on us. Are we going to wait for sanctions to force us into changes that will imapct our quality of life such as forced down time due to our current path of wasting resources? I would prefer to choose when I shut down my power or conserve water instead of continuing our current path of blindly ignoring what we are doing to this world.
I for one spent a lovely hour enjoying a couple of Bacardi Breezers (which by the way taste like Creamsicles in a bottle) on my terrrace and thoroughly enjoying the starlit night at the end of the hour.
I bid you Peace!

Re: Earth Hour

Sheila — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:44:55 -0000

Earth Hour is idiotic... and dangerous. By stated facts, dividing down Australia's gross national product, if every city in Australia were to participate in Earth Hour it would cost an estimated $50,000,000.00 in lost productivity, even at night. That is the salary of 1000 jobs for an entire year! All to stave off how much pollution exactly?

Enough to fill one medium sized thimble. That's right.

That is the consequence of Gunpoint Environmentalism: Poverty.

Re: Earth Hour

Drue Kataoka — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:21:42 -0000

Good points Beth. As bloggers, we must do our part to raise awareness. Thanks for paying close attention to Earth Hour. I wanted to share my post with you:

http://www.valleyzen.com/20...

Re: Earth Hour

Rebecca — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:25:51 -0000

This morning at Sobey's, there was a sign on their door announcing their intent to support Earth Hour by keeping on just the necessary lights. My thought was (and I meant to write this before Earth Hour, when I turned off my laptop) if those extra lights are not necessary, why are they on in the first place?

Re: Earth Hour

Raul — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:47:23 -0000

No, hadn't read Green is Sexy, but will have to get on with it. I do enjoy reading your blog, as your path of experiences mirrors mine *oh so much* ... really. Plus you have funny posts quite often. I found the footnotes give the blog an "academic" feel (after all, it's Dr. Beth Snow, isn't it ;))

Have a nice weekend!

Re: Earth Hour

Beth — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:23:07 -0000

Raul,

If you read that, it says "lights and unnecessary appliances", *not* "unnecessarily lights and appliances." The "unnecessary" in that phase only applies to appliances, not lights. So I stick by my statement that BC Hydro IS being lame - they have changed it from *all* lights to just *unnecessary* ones.

I'll have to check out those blogs your recommend... I've never heard of them! Have you read Green is Sexy?

Re: Earth Hour

Raul — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:04:20 -0000

Beth,

Earth Day was supposed to be exactly that (lights and unnecessary appliances), so it's not BC Hydro being lame. I agree that it *should* be ALL lights as opposed to UNNECESSARY lights, but that's how the program was promoted/designed.

Another good green blog is TreeHugger. I would promote mine as a good environmental blog, but it's not really... it's more the Random Thoughts of a Student of the Environment :) And yeah, it's a very random blog (peppered with some environmental stuff.