![Marco:
Photo of the Day:: The global headquarters of the Earth Hour event during Earth Hour.
Take your own advice much? [via.]
This is one of those feel-good environmentally conscious movements that has so many inconvenient implementation details that its purpose is devalued and many people ultimately miss the point.
The lamp on my desk, with a CFL bulb, uses 26 watts. Granted, we usually keep two of these lamps on. So our living room typically uses 52W for lighting during the hours that we’re using it.
That idle MacBook Pro on the edge of that desk uses about 60W.
A typical modern 24” LCD monitor, like the one on that same desk, uses about 100W.
I hope and assume that the pictured room, full of people and computers but with closed windows, didn’t need air conditioning (500-800W).
It’s easy to turn off your lights for an hour on a Saturday evening. Was anyone inconvenienced by that, really? Did anyone need to change their plans, their diets, or their habits?
Of course not. Everyone just sat on the internet for an hour with their 50-250W computers, using services requiring tens, hundreds, or thousands of 400W servers and countless switches and routers along the way, all in air-conditioned datacenters.
And afterward, everyone turned their lights back on and continued their lives with no significant changes whatsoever.
Positive environmental impact takes real effort and real change. It’s more than just dropping your endless supply of plastic bottles in recycling bins, making sure the new car you lease every 3 years to drive yourself 30 miles to work every day is fuel-efficient, and posting to Twitter for an hour about how your lights are off.
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katieschenk disagrees:
Marco, I think you might be the one who missed the point. Earth Hour isn’t really about the watts not being used for an hour one night out of the year. Turning off your lights was a “vote for Earth”. From their website:
For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.
By us turning out our lights, it shows we support this cause and that the world wants to take action against global warming. You’re right, the watts not used during that hour across the globe won’t make much of a difference in the long run, but the symbolism of everyone particpating will.
Um, no.
I’m with Marco.
Symbolism is nothing without effective action. Millions showing up for MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech was not symbolic. It was directly indicative of their A) beliefs, B) willingness to act on those beliefs, and C) ability to create change in accordance with such.
More pointedly, those who didn’t halt all of their fossil-fuel usage for that hour didn’t vote. To call it such is a misnomer at best. A ballot is not just symbolic. It’s an action that by the rules of our democracy creates change.
Earth Hour was symbolic, and may have in fact cut global energy usage by some percentage for that 60 minute period. But in using that same global viewpoint, it was more indicative of our unwillingness to act. Starting at the top.
And that’s almost as symbolic as the percentage of the population who don’t vote.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/b9vfl4b63lnintq6mHyWyu7Do1_500.jpg)
Photo of the Day:: The global headquarters of the Earth Hour event during Earth Hour.
Take your own advice much? [via.]
This is one of those feel-good environmentally conscious movements that has so many inconvenient implementation details that its purpose is devalued and many people ultimately miss the point.
The lamp on my desk, with a CFL bulb, uses 26 watts. Granted, we usually keep two of these lamps on. So our living room typically uses 52W for lighting during the hours that we’re using it.
That idle MacBook Pro on the edge of that desk uses about 60W.
A typical modern 24” LCD monitor, like the one on that same desk, uses about 100W.
I hope and assume that the pictured room, full of people and computers but with closed windows, didn’t need air conditioning (500-800W).
It’s easy to turn off your lights for an hour on a Saturday evening. Was anyone inconvenienced by that, really? Did anyone need to change their plans, their diets, or their habits?
Of course not. Everyone just sat on the internet for an hour with their 50-250W computers, using services requiring tens, hundreds, or thousands of 400W servers and countless switches and routers along the way, all in air-conditioned datacenters.
And afterward, everyone turned their lights back on and continued their lives with no significant changes whatsoever.
Positive environmental impact takes real effort and real change. It’s more than just dropping your endless supply of plastic bottles in recycling bins, making sure the new car you lease every 3 years to drive yourself 30 miles to work every day is fuel-efficient, and posting to Twitter for an hour about how your lights are off.
————————————————————-
katieschenk disagrees:
Marco, I think you might be the one who missed the point. Earth Hour isn’t really about the watts not being used for an hour one night out of the year. Turning off your lights was a “vote for Earth”. From their website:
For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.
By us turning out our lights, it shows we support this cause and that the world wants to take action against global warming. You’re right, the watts not used during that hour across the globe won’t make much of a difference in the long run, but the symbolism of everyone particpating will.
Um, no.
I’m with Marco.
Symbolism is nothing without effective action. Millions showing up for MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech was not symbolic. It was directly indicative of their A) beliefs, B) willingness to act on those beliefs, and C) ability to create change in accordance with such.
More pointedly, those who didn’t halt all of their fossil-fuel usage for that hour didn’t vote. To call it such is a misnomer at best. A ballot is not just symbolic. It’s an action that by the rules of our democracy creates change.
Earth Hour was symbolic, and may have in fact cut global energy usage by some percentage for that 60 minute period. But in using that same global viewpoint, it was more indicative of our unwillingness to act. Starting at the top.
And that’s almost as symbolic as the percentage of the population who don’t vote.
