Comments on Good Idea? Or Stunt?

Let's have Al Gore shut down the power to his house for 1 hour. That would be the equivalent to doing this four times.

Well, if anyone can think of any better ideas for saving the whales, I'd like to hear them.

Lets just hope that the electric companies understands what's going on, because they provide service by shifting power across grids as demand happens. When everyone turns the lights back on an hour later they have to compensate or the grid can collapse. Other then that... I applaud this idea :-)

This sucks!

It's a good idea, if only because it may wake more people up to how much we take this energy for granted.

@3: Good point. Referring to this as power "saving" isn't really accurate. It's not as if the power supplied to LA and SF for that hour is going to a "power reserve". Someone in Las Vegas or Fresno is going to use it instead.

Well, office buildings should shut off their lights at night. Are office workers really at work at 3 am? I kind of doubt it.

@#2 - Whales are fucking stupid. Can you mention one whale in the history of mankind that has had a record in the top ten? Can you? Can you mention one whale who's written the equivalent of 'Othello', Shakespeare, 'Health & Efficiency'? They've produced nothing in the way of literature. All they've fucking produced is a load of other whales and all they eat is fucking plankton, and they call them intelligent. Can you imagine drifting along in the sea with your mouth open and a lot of fucking plankton going in?
You'd like it, would you, just drifting around in the sea? And they're such cunts they can't even breathe underwater. They have to keep coming up the whole fucking time and spouting. Then some cunt comes on telly and he says, "Oh, the whale is being wiped out by mankind, save the fucking whales...." Well - during the war, did we notice a lot of whales rallying round and saying, "Save England!" I didn't notice many down my part of the world. I didn't see whales coming up with Union Jacks saying, "We'll fight the Boche". No, they were doing fucking all, swimming around the fucking sea sucking fucking plankton down!

What good does one hour of frugality do if you then get back in your SUV to drive home to your McMansion?

"Voluntary Simplicity" seems a better idea. Didn't catch on, did it?

Andrew

gREAT IDEA - BUILD CONSERVATION MIND SET

I believe in some cases the cleaning crew works overnight to make that cubicle all shiny in the morning.

@9 - Couldn't agree more. This is symbolic conservatism. Makes people feel good and energy-aware, like they're getting with the program. It'd make much more sense if everyone just went to bed two hours earlier and shut off all of their energy-sucking appliances. Get out your Jimmy Carter cardigans unless you're already wearing a hair shirt, and turn down the heat.

If we save whales, is this the same as Jesus saving us?

@2

I do. Harpoon a fat chick.

It's a tiny band aid, a pointless gesture that accomplishes nothing because it doesn't change habits in a meaningful long term way. It's no different from the ill-informed annual one day gasoline boycott.

But @8, I'm with you. Fuck the whales until they start earning their keep. Maybe we'll stop killing them when get their shit together enough to offer us a good alternative energy source. Whale poop combustion, anyone?

what a bunch of dipshits in here.

Nuke the gay whales for Jesus!

I'm in SF and I've been contemplating how much hate I might generate if I just say fuck it and turn on every light in my apartment between 8pm and 9pm. More energy for me!

Basically, I agree - it doesn't necessarily save anything, it's just sent to other parts on the grid. I also notice that Sacramento isn't on the list - wouldn't want Ahnold having to turn off anything now would we? Energy conservation will happen when we adopt different resources for energy, not from turning off lights for an hour. The "turn it off" concept only works with pollution - so I guess in terms of being able to see the stars tonight it'll be great. \m/

It's NOT like the one-day gasoline boycott, and the power saved does NOT just go get used somewhere else. The amount of power consumption is in fact reduced. The gas boycott doesn't reduce gas consumption, since gas not bought on Monday is bought Tuesday instead. I think it's an interesting idea.

I vote: yes, great idea. Even if it doesn't go over well, I'm happy to see effort.

@6 @17 That is not correct. The energy is not just used elsewhere. If you follow that logic one would have to conclude that if turning off lights uses no less energy then turning on lights uses no more energy!

@18 has is right. When a light, or any other device on the grid, is turned off it reduces the overall load. The power plants compensate by reducing their power output. Some power plants can store the excess energy in reserves rather than reducing output. The stored energy is used later when demand increases.

I'm surprised people are saying that this is pointless. Would you say the same thing if everyone turned on all their lights for an hour in the middle of the day instead, or would you be complaining about the wasted energy?

First off, it does save energy. Secondly, it raises awareness. Thirdly, I hope everyone here, especially the naysayers, have switched to CFL compact fluorescent bulbs. It's a no-brainer.

Total stunt. Conservation isn't about sitting in the dark for an hour. A better idea would be to have the cities purchase thousands of florescent bulbs and have volunteers go door to door offering to change them for people. Then, instead of saving one fucking hour of energy, they would save tens of thousands.

Live from SF:

Thing is, I'm looking around my darkened apartment and lessee now... my fridge is on, my electronics, while on sleep mode, are on, my wifi is on (although my laptop is running off battery power, not connected into the grid), and I'm fairly sure those are all draining more electricity off the grid than the three lightbulbs that I had to turn off for total darkness did. I honestly don't see this as helping and would rather see more work and funding going into alternate energy sources. In addition, not one of my neighbors here have turned off their lights. Less money on paper flyers for turning lights out, more money on windfarms.

This is as ridiculous as when the great citizens of this city protested civic posters that smelled of cookies because the posters might taunt the homeless.

Jeebus.

Well, it's 8:30pm on Saturday night. I'm looking out of my window, atop one of those San Francisco hills where you can see the whole city; and I can't say it looks any less lit up than normal.

@23:

How much you wanna bet the Haight is the only place that's dark right now? Russian Hill and Nob Hill are totally lit up, as is Pac Heights, Chinatown and downtown from what I can see.

They did this in Sydney a few months back. Nothing but a stupid stunt. I certainly haven't seen any evidence of significant awareness-raising occurring since.

Gitai, aren't you lucky? Seattle City Light is looking for people to volunteer to deliver CFL's to people!!!

http://cityofseattle.gov/light/conserve/neighborhood/cv5_vol.asp

Granted, it seems to be open only to people in the Maple Leaf neighborhood (!?!?!) but it's a start.

As for stunts, don't knock 'em. Even the lamest stunt gets people thinking. Look at the success of the GOP since their biggest stunt: The election of Ronald Reagan. Who'd have thought that was possible?

What I want to know is why is Daylight Savings Time being pushed back every year? When are we turning our clocks back? November? Never?

Funny, one of the light bulbs in my bedroom JUST burned out, making it the first one I've had to change in the two years I've been at my apartment. Just a regular old Walgreens brand incandescent, rated for 500 hours or whatever, nothin' fancy. If this is unusual, it makes me think most people must spend WAY too much time at home, sitting around with their lights on.

What people should do is congregate in bars, cafes, or restaurants until bed time. Consider them like mass transit, or car-sharing, but the power grid. I don't expect people in rural areas to chance their habits, but they aren't the problem, it's suburbs and cities sucking up most of the power.

And to the nay sayers that say the power is always generated, but flows elsewhere; here in SF, I believe they bring power plants on- and off-line as needed, which means relying on the dirtiest, oldest generators to meet peak demands.

I live in Sydney and this is a growth from an idea that was launched here this year.

It's called Earth Hour (http://earthhour.smh.com.au/).

It isn't primarily designed to save a huge amount of energy. It's primarily designed to show all of us what we can do towards saving energy by lots and lots of small acts by individuals.

The overall effect was amazing (even if some of the papers here doctored their photos to make it look as if it had more impact than it actually did). There were restaurants who did candlelit dinners all night in the dining spaces of their venues and my local drag bar even put on a lights out show with the bar staff in miner's helmets lighting the show.

If it hasn't happened already, give it your suport, if nothing else you can see a few more stars.