General Discussions

No one seemed to be participating around my neighborhood. So did I.

Well I didn't take part in Earth Hour this year anyway.
I guess I should spread the word.

i do believe he is having a bad day..a bad hair day maybe. i'm so dependent on electricity i could never turn it off or live without it even for a single day

Dhampy, the point of Earth Hour is not to save power for an hour in the year, it is to make people aware of just how much power they use and how it is possible to live without needing to use so much.

By your logic we should stop acknowledging March 21 as stop racism day because it's only one day out of the year, or end the terry fox run in Canada because it only occurs once a year in one country. Sure those are largely symbolic gestures, but how frequently would you think of these things if it wasn't for those symbolic gestures?

Yes, indeed.

Symbolic gestures are for people who don't care, who just want to appear to be trendy.

If you actually care, you'll practice it all the time.

But you don't, because all you care about is looking like you care.

"Making people aware" has always been a very pointless motive. If you want to save the Earth, stop drinking bottled water and find a way to make solar power cheap and more efficient. Making people aware just motivates them to turn off the lights for a day, after which they'll go back to their normal schedule.

Someone who really cares tries to use less electricity year round. They do it because they actually want to make a difference and they know that an hour of no lights is not how to do that.

There's only one way to "encourage" power savings, money. Use less electricity/water/natural gas and save on monthly bills. Buy a high efficiency furnace/toilet/stove/etc and get a rebate. That's what brings change, because in the end it all comes down to money. Money drives the world, and it can also force change.

We recently replaced all the toilets in our house except the basement one. High efficiency ones that use a vacuum and a dual flush system. We got rebates from the municipal, provincial, and federal governments.

We also have a brand new furnace, 95% efficient I think it was. And again, government rebates.

All the windows in the house are being replaced. Once again high efficiency ones, ones insulated to minimize heat loss. Once again we got government rebates.

That's making a real difference, not turning off the lights for an hour at night. It's dark outside, the second 9PM comes around people are doing to turn on the lights and sit in front of the TV watching whatever show and forget about climate change completely by the time that show is over. Not to mention the huge power surge that happens when the whole city turns on it's light at the same time. The power isn't created inside your own house, one power station makes it for multiple cities. Going from 50% to 100% instantly takes a lot of preparation for the people that provide you with this power.

Dude just got pwned three ways by three people with very different views.