Earth Hour 2008 Created 16 years ago2008-03-29 14:24:17 UTC by alexb911

Some of you may have noticed Google has turned the lights out to show support to Earth Hour 2008...

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour ? from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.

Will you be turning your lights off?

You are a thread whore hrm? Even a nice helping of copy pasta - heh

No, I wont.

I keep my lights of 90% of the time anyway. My PC uses more than enough power to compensate, though

I'll be watching Lost on my computer, thankyouverymuch.

Guys, we're killing the planet.

I do realise that, I mean, I keep most of my lights off as well. The simple fact is, there's no way that this futile little movement of there's is going to help anything.

1. It's only an hour, we're only delaying the process of killing Earth.
2. Humans are greedy creatures that like their light
3. If a small following of people stop, the majority will still kill the planet anyway.

It's a symbolic action, not designed to save resources. It's for one god damn hour. Jeez.

I'll turn the lights off but I'm still gonna leave my PC and TV and cooker on so I can eat.

I'm doing it =]

I'm doing it =]

Good, me too!

And I'm soooo sorry I didn't give Google credit for writing that wonderful paragraph. Please, I need a mod to rectify this immediately before they sue me.

I'm leaving lights on to make up for the people leaving theirs off.

hydeph is a true saint in our day and age.

Well, my 120W Spot-lights have been off for over an hour now... however, for roughly an hour and a half i've been playing Crysis which pumps the crap out of my computer, and probably consumes over 500W.

It's great playing with the lights off though!

I was sleeping during the Earth Hour. I conserved more energy than any of you.
I haz the power.

Do you has the power?
Do you has the spice?
Do you controls the universe?

Yeah I kinda planned to do it but I forgot while watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...Yeah it was good.

On the bright side the light in my PC room was off while I watched it :>

I was watching porn and didn't realize about the hour.

I don't think that power is important as the food we throw away, while the hungry in Africa (Asia too) die. So if you want to do something good don't throw your food. Eat everything that you buy and I show respect to the ones that don't have anything. Don't laugh at them indirectly by throwing food. Oh, and hydroelectric power plants and wind power plants (and solar panels) produce energy regardless of are usage of power.

I don't think that power is important as the food we throw away, while the hungry in Africa (Asia too) die. So if you want to do something good don't throw your food. Eat everything that you buy and I show respect to the ones that don't have anything. Don't laugh at them indirectly by throwing food. Oh, and hydroelectric power plants and wind power plants (and solar panels) produce energy regardless of are usage of power.

Wat. I don't want to derail the thread or anything, but isn't that a bit ridiculous? No matter what happens to that food, it wouldn't be going into the mouths of a starving person either way, so what difference does it make? It's not like you can shovel your leftovers into a box and ship them off to Africa. You aren't keeping it from anybody else by not eating it.

I was watching porn and didn't realize about the hour.

SPIKE! Porn causes global warming! You completely killed that lights of hour with global warming damnit!

Just the lights right? They'd be damned if they make me turn my comp off.

I'll do it.

But anyone know about www.blackle.com ?

Maybe twhl should do the same. TURN OUT THE FUCKIN LIGHTS!

I was watching porn and didn't realize about the hour.

Porn > preservation of the planet.
Your actions were justifiable.

He forgot to mention it was ghey pr0n.

He forgot to mention it was ghey pr0n.

No Luke, it was midget porn.

I'm not sure about their statement that a dark screen uses the same amount of energy as a light screen - surely there must be some difference, otherwise why would laptops dim their screens in order to conserve battery life?

I think Blackle looks great, and in fact I preferred the look of Google over the last day to the original - I love the black. Especially after a gaming session or sitting in the dark for a while, I hate being confronted by a blearing white Google search - It kills my eyes!

Obviously Google was just making a point, and being the most used search engine it is guaranteed to generate A LOT of interest - but to be fair, its the equivalent of all the political snobs who drive Range Rovers and Jags on a daily basis that are buying Prius', just so it looks like they are doing their bit for the environment. But it the end, if it helps make a difference, i'm all for it.

I grant that rant was purely targeted at Google not at Earth Hour, but hopefully you see where I'm coming from!

I was going to do it, but I started playing Guitar Hero before it happened and I completely forgot.

Since it's a total gimmick I wasn't going to bother with it, then I forgot and didn't do it anyway.

I SUPPORTED EARTHHOUR, I EVEN TURNED MY COMPUTER OFF FOR EIGHTY MINUTES!

I wasn't going to bother with it, then I forgot and didn't do it anyway.

HAHA!

SHOW ME PRAISES!

<aims praise gun at Kraken> pew-pew-pew! = >

WAIT A MINUTE!
...
...
...
Kraken, who did you used to be?

All the people who don't turn off their lights, think its cool to leave them on or think that it will make little or no difference is the kind of attitude that is holding us back.

World Crafter: mcmitchmo.

aaron: I was gonna do it... :<

All the people who don't turn off their lights, think its cool to leave them on or think that it will make little or no difference is the kind of attitude that is holding us back.

It's a tricky argument, that one. I do believe it wont make that much of a difference though. You might say that's the attitude that's holding us back, but at the same time, how does turning them off move us forward. Even then, there's no possible way to get your cause into every single person. So, when there's a call for people to do things like this, they are only delaying the inevitable. That's why little projects like this have any kind of value or majesty to it. Less people do it, more people dont. That said, it's like ZL said earlier. It is a "symbolic" event. The largest problem is that different symbols mean different things to different people, just the majority believes that they dont care and keep their lights on anyway.

And, if you want to be a real hardass. "how" is that attitude holding us back. It is actually improving us in several ways. Even though it's slowly killing the planet, it's just a drawback that we have to decide for ourselves; a logical descision that we as a species cannot turn back from. Power consumption creates jobs, power usage has progressed our quality of life and the way we live our lives, and there is no possible way we're going to become independant of electricity. You say it's holding us back, but instead it's pulling specifically the planet down. Also, bringing the planet down in the first place gives a whole host of other people jobs. Humans like jobs, if fucking the planet creates more jobs (even if the inventors didn't know themselves at first), then let there be jobs.

It wasn't aimed to save power......

it was aimed to raise awareness.

I say we just invent a way to harness heat-energy. That way we can just use roofing tiles in the midday sun to generate heat, and then power some.. stuff.... Either that or put a windmill generator on everyones roof.

I would have done it if I had known about it.

Oh well.. next year I suppose

Grim Reafer pretty much nailed it on the head there.
And nobody ever said they thought it made them "cool" to not turn your lights off for an hour, we just said that the idea was silly. Like Kraken said, the point was to raise awareness, not to save power. There are hundreds of ways you can raise awareness, but turning Google black is a rather ridiculous one the way I see it. Also, here's a thought: dedicating a website to a black colored google to save energy is being hosted on lots of servers. The servers that are used to host that website probably use more power than the website has saved, so epic failure there.

Major movements to conserve energy have been in action for a long time now, and I'm all for them. Flourescent bulbs, more fuel-efficient cars, hell even solar power.

Yeah. But even the best solar panels are only 40% efficient. And I'm talking the best here. Most fall in the 20%-30% efficiency range, and the energy savings just don't cover the power made to build them sometimes.
But i do like solar panels

Still, it can be worth the effort. I had a friend say hybrid cars were stupid because they still consumed gas, which is like saying brushing your teeth is bad because they always get dirty again. At the very least, they buy us time.

the bulbs in parking lot spotlights and high powered sodium vapour lights draw so much energy all this at home conservation was just burnt up

just to clear up an error: the very best solar panel is only 20% efficient, not 40%. Most are around 15%.

Nuclear energy FTW!

Penis pudding Bushmen FTW!

Penguinboy, your stat is accurate for panels easy to buy. Not the top secret stuff.
Anyway.
Hybrid cars are stupid both visually and economically.

otherwise why would laptops dim their screens in order to conserve battery life?

true, but there is a light behind the screen that is adjusted, not the screen itself. the monitor for your desktop comps are a different story and can't be dimmed anyway. i think that was a part of the point.

Also National Geographic has this thing called The Huamn Footprint, and its along the same lines only in a more critical manner. Combine all of the stuff one person wastes in a life time and lay it out in a back field. Its a considerable display i"m sure.

Not the top secret stuff.
Anyway.

I would love for you to find a documented legit source that mentions solar panels that effecient. I mean, how in the hell does an insignificant person (which includes all of us) know about "top"secret information. Top secret means that if you find out without the clearance, the government will kill you <3. Granted it's top, you wouldn't know anything.

Even if more effecient ones do exist, technically they dont. So long as we dont officially know about them or are able to use them, they are dead to me.

Well that's the major problem. And i knew i was gonna catch flak for saying stuff like that.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/printable_versions/current_voltage.html

Explains which factors affect the efficiency

And this graph:shows the cell efficiency.

And by top secret, i basically meant.. research stuff. PV cells (The more scientific name) are achieving higher efficiencies penguin.

So all those purple things on that graph can be explained here.

Don't think i didn't do my research.

http://www.terradaily.com/news/solarcell-05f.html

We have seen steady progress in photovoltaic concentrator technology. We are working with advanced multijunction PV cells that are approaching 38% efficiency, and even higher is possible over time. Our goal is to install PV concentrator systems at $3 per watt, which can happen soon at production rates of 10 megawatts per year. Once that happens, higher volumes are readily achieved," Hayden, Solar Program Coordinator at APS, said.

Of course.. those aren't "cells" They're units that track the sun, and convert it into energy better than cells themselves.

there are solar panels which easily pay off the energy used to create them these days, even in short time.

I hope our fuel prices rise so high people are forced not to drive, that, would, be, great.

IDIOT FEEBLE HUMANS!

Seriously, introduce death control, but not birth control?