Survey: Have You Signed Up For Earth Hour?

I'm surprised at how many people are doing it without registering. WHY?! The (main) point isn't to save electricity for that hour (we should be living as energy-frugal as possible always anyway), but the main point is to have a defined number of participants so that collectively we can say X million people around the world believe in fighting climate change.

It's free, it's VERY easy, so why not?

C'mon, register. ESPECIALLY if you're turning off anyway...

No way. Environmentalism isn't about sitting in the dark. Instead, it's about more light (with less watts), more beauty, more fun, and more health. Earth Hour's messaging seems counter-productive to me.

I see both sides. I'm more inclined to have an electricity-free weekend. Then you get candle-lit dinners (or dinners outside if you've got the luxury) and you're unchained from your computer/cell/tv....

obviously you still get to use the fridge...and maybe the stovetop....

We turn off everything every night anyway. So Earth Hour will be par for the course for us.

I'm on 100% solar power already so I'll be turning all my lights ON for the hour!

Peter, Paul.......I feel like I am missing someone :) ,

Peter -
I do not understand your logic....you say this is not about electricity and more about the statement of fighing climate change. Isn't turning off all electricity for one hour fullfillling that? I think every Sunday should have climate hour and everyone should turn off all eletronics for one hour......imagine that. So, yes, turning off power IS fighting climate change and the message is simple: USE LESS.........which the members of developed countries DO NOT DO! Just replacing coal plants with solar,wind, geothermal, biomass, wave power plants WILL NOT supply enough energy to meet the needs of our current wastefullness. Do the research! We need to reduce!!!!!!!

Paul -

Why not participate? Just because your solar panels capture energy and store it in batteries does not mean that your electricity doesn't damage the planet. Batteries have a lifetime and using them LESS extends their life.........since you needed an excuse to participate. Recycling batteries in not exactly environmentallly neutral.

pdq

Hi Gurls and Guys

Keep up the green life line and the effort to educate each one of us on planet earth to make an effort to neutralise our carbon footprint.

Over the past three years our company ATCS NSW
(Australia) has developed an alternative means of generating energy for a fully electric motor vehicle.

It appears that the only interested parties in this commercially viable zero CO2 producing technology are Petrol Companies and Car Manufacturers.

Our technology is two steps ahead of electric shortfall Hybrids and appears two steps ahead of any other E.V. of any consequence

Our design uses state of the art technology. Where we go two steps further then existing attempts in E.V. power we incorporate supercapacitors and our own on board energy producing device, that does not draw on the vehicle for energy or reduce performance.

In fact the more power our technology produces the less impact it has on the vehicle. We believe the more power you need the more efficient the car becomes. Therefore rather than trying to create larger stronger power sources we in fact reduced our Lithion Ion bank by 40% and intend to eliminate batteries from the vehicle over the next five years.

Anyhow I would be interested in speaking with any of your readers or anyone that has a passion for E.V.'s and has extensive knowledge with intergrated systems and an intimate knowledge of Electrical or Mechanical Engineering?

In closing one of your Green Army and fans

Ian Fulford for ATCS (NSW)

One of the conditions of signing up is that they will send you promotional emails. You can't register without providing your email address. So I'm not signing up.
I'm quite unhappy about it and feel that its a for of blackmail - "give us your email or you can't sign up".
I'm still in two minds about it. It is symbolic. I think that symbolism is important, but it also allows people think that they have done something good just becase they have participated ina atoken event. I wonder how much of it will translate into long term behavioural change. (It it does, fantastic! But if it doesn't, then it was all just a feel good waste of time, that was possibly even counter-productive).

M.

Another blogger and I were just talking about how cool and simple it would be if we all turned off the lights one hour a week. I'd like to see that become the next development for Earth Hour in 2008! :)

pdq, it really is more about a statement than electricity saving. Don't get me wrong, we need to save as much power and reduce our environmental footprints as much as possible!

But that one hour? Our house will save about .35kw/h. That's about 0.00011% of our annual use. The changes we've made to our house to reduce power use ALL the time have dropped our use by about 30% (By the way we're working on getting some domestic renewable gear and going carbon-negative).

And at the same time the monstorous aluminium smelter 5km from here will keep on keeping on right through Earth Hour.

So saving power is the small benefit of Earth Hour (in my opinion). The main and much more important part of the initiative is to make as big a statement as possible. And the only way to do that is to register as an active participant. We the public think this is a massive problem and we want to be counted as wanting to do something about it!

Silently turning off our power is not enough. We all need to be counted.

I believe what peter means is that shutting our lights off is more symbolic than environmentally effective. And that the main objective of this is to raise awareness and to allow people to make a statement.

I'd imagine that's the same as what Paul's doing, making a symbolic gesture about his environmental views. Besides, for all we know, the man stores energy in pressurized H2 and uses it to run a generator at night...

As for me, i'm going to make it known that at least 1 singaporean is participating this year. Where are the rest of my island dwelling brothers and sisters?

I will participate, but did not sign up out of fear that I'd subsequently be inundated withe e-mails, direct mail, and phone calls from the World WIldlife Fund after I gave them all my personal info.

EARTH HOUR is intended to be a statement. "I am aware of climate change. I am aware of the state of our environment and I will contribute."

How many times do people complain about things: environment, politics, community...and these people NEVER make one single effort to change anything.

This is intended to motivate people to be aware that they CAN change things and they can be a part of something. The darker a city is, the more you know there are people around you that are willing to join in making a change.

Laziness is never a catalyst of change.

Oh no! we can't do Earthhour tonight! Our most favorite college team made the Elite Eight and are playing at 7:10. No way will our family miss that! Oh well, maybe next year.