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EARTHERS BURN

A fine letter to the SMH:

The advice on candles in the Earth Hour supplement may not be as green as you claim. Every standard-sized candle, when burnt completely, releases 15 grams of carbon dioxide whether it is beeswax, soy or paraffin-based. The lady depicted is burning 28 candles, creating more than four times the CO2 supplied by coal power to light one old-fashioned 100-watt bulb for an hour.

Paul Roberts

That’s the problem with my planned Illumination Hour (scheduled for 8pm on March 29, coincidentally). Even the grandest and most excessive power-eating gesture is unlikely to deliver a larger carbon footprint than generated by the average Earther. We’ll have to work hard, people! Further reason from Contrail:

Is there any greater example of green stupidity than Earth Hour?

The whole stunt requires people to turn off efficiently made and distributed energy - electricity - and replace it with alternatives - candles and gas barbecues - that have to be transported by oil-burning ships, trucks and cars to the point where they are to be set fire to in the open air without any means of capturing emissions.

It’s insanity if the aim is to reduce CO2. And what makes it worse is that Fairfax media is behind it 100%. If the same degree of thought is going into its other business decisions, sell your Fairfax shares while you can.

I wonder if it’s possible to buy Fairfax shares with carbon credits.

Posted by Tim B. on 03/20/2008 at 12:10 AM

  1. As long as the Gaia-Pope AlGore gets his cut.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 20 at 12:17 AM • permalink

  2. If you use 28 candles to burn a low-emission lightbulb in a forest does it still emit carbon?

    Posted by Vincent Gerome on 2008 03 20 at 12:18 AM • permalink

  3. Earth Hour’s like Church on Christmas Day for agnostics. 1 hour of quiet reflection and twiddling your thumbs and then you pig out!

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 03 20 at 12:19 AM • permalink

  4. If there’s no one there to tax it, I suppose not.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 20 at 12:20 AM • permalink

  5. My #4 was meant for #2 Vincent.

    Darned interloper Tiger.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 20 at 12:21 AM • permalink

  6. If you buy Carbon Indulgences Credits aren’t the Fairfax shares gratis?

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 20 at 12:21 AM • permalink

  7. #3 - I don’t twiddle my thumbs - I sing the hymnes and Carols like a Methodist and with a voice like mine that is probably up there with water boarding.  My wife hates it, so we don’t have to go back to church for another year.  I can’t see the same happening on the 29th.

    Posted by Razor on 2008 03 20 at 12:25 AM • permalink

  8. Use of candles also constitutes a pretty statistically sizeable ignition point in housefires. How much CO2 does your average household inferno contribute to the atmosphere? Not to mention the petrol the fire engines burn rushing to your home to put the fire out. With water.

    Posted by hayesy on 2008 03 20 at 12:30 AM • permalink

  9. Symbols clanking to drown out critics.

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 20 at 12:36 AM • permalink

  10. So, if I turn on all the lights, and the airconditioner, the fan, both heaters, and have music blaring out of the stereo and the computer, I’ll still have to burn a bunch of candles as well?
    This is starting to sound like hard work.

    Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 03 20 at 12:37 AM • permalink

  11. Ageist advice geosequestration to avoid global temperatures reaching the tipping point into catastrophic and irreversible climate change.

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 20 at 12:45 AM • permalink

  12. This earth hour is shaping up to be a smashing success for us eeevil right wing bastards.  What with the tilty luddites increasing their CO2 output with candles and the rest of us competing to emit the most possible CO2, it really should be renamed to the Hour of Power!

    Posted by bondo on 2008 03 20 at 12:47 AM • permalink

  13. I’m tempted to fire up the 10KW back up generator I picked up during Earth Hour.  I can burn gasoline, run lights, computers, and other appliances, plus it makes noise.  Lots and lots of noise!

    Take that, envirotards!  BUAWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 20 at 01:14 AM • permalink

  14. Hey Tim,

    could we have, on the Earth Hour night, a thread similar to the ones where you asked us to post pictures of fridges and the view from our windows?

    We could send you pictures of our houses, flats, front and backyards, barbecue areas etc, showing how many lights we’ve rigged up to illuminate the earth in protest at the Great Dimming.

    Things like massive spotlights, Habib mentioned hiring Kleigs, we could park cars in driveways facing darkened neighbours and shine our hi beams into their houses so they can see their way to the toilet.

    Any commenters here that haven’t taken down their Christmas lights would be especially well prepared.

    What do you think?

    Posted by Pogria on 2008 03 20 at 01:20 AM • permalink

  15. Illumination Hour! Love it.

    Kennards charges only $195 to hire a 4,000 watt trailer-mounted electric light. This lights 1 acre! Just the thing for our front lawn to enjoy the Illumination Hour BBQ. Angry greenie neighbours a bonus.

    Posted by The Leadster on 2008 03 20 at 01:20 AM • permalink

  16. ...planned Illumination Hour
    Dammit.
    A splodge of indeterminate material on the monitor had me thinking there was going
    to be an illuminati Hour.


    Does anyone need 300kg of ammonium nitrate?

    Posted by lotocoti on 2008 03 20 at 01:21 AM • permalink

  17. I keep the headlights of my car turned off when I’m not driving it. That saves electricity, dont it?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2008 03 20 at 01:41 AM • permalink

  18. Chuck Norris likes Earth Hour because he enjoys killing hippies in the dark.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2008 03 20 at 01:46 AM • permalink

  19. Tim, I hope you Illumination Hour is a roaring success. Shine on you crazy diamond. (LOL)

    Posted by BJM on 2008 03 20 at 01:51 AM • permalink

  20. Chuck Norris doesn’t turn the lights off for Earth Hour. He turns the dark on.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2008 03 20 at 01:53 AM • permalink

  21. In related news, Students Against Drunk Driving is planning Kegger Night for Life, when they’ll raise awareness of the problem of teen drinking by getting hammered and crashing their cars into nursing homes.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2008 03 20 at 01:56 AM • permalink

  22. O/T
    I felt like a bit of punishment, so I had a look at Jeremy’s flickr site.
    The man must have very few friends and few meaningful interests, no wonder he devotes his life to following what Bolta and Blair are up to.
    After all how many hours can he spend with his cat?

    Posted by Orion on 2008 03 20 at 02:06 AM • permalink

  23. Well, as long as we’re going for candle-lit civilization for an hour, I vote for also throwing our garbage and chamber-pot contents out the window into the street.  Enough with half measures.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 03 20 at 02:12 AM • permalink

  24. or: Chuck Norris enjoys Earth Hour because he’s a romantic, and likes killing hippies by candlelight.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2008 03 20 at 02:12 AM • permalink

  25. The shock wave from one Chuck Norris roundhouse kick can blow out all the candles in Australia…from Alaska.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2008 03 20 at 02:14 AM • permalink

  26. Some people pee their name in the snow: Chuck Norris peed his name on the peak of Kilimanjaro, and they blamed global warming.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2008 03 20 at 02:17 AM • permalink

  27. I presume all Faifax Sunday newspapers will roll before or after Earth Hour ?

    Posted by watty on 2008 03 20 at 02:28 AM • permalink

  28. It’s the one hour a year even ugly chicks can enjoy! Get some lovin’ while you can, ladies!

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 03 20 at 02:35 AM • permalink

  29. Hey people, don’t be so negative, get with the program.

    Posted by chrisgo on 2008 03 20 at 02:49 AM • permalink

  30. Have a squiz at Bolta’s blog, where he highlights a hot air balloon….yes, that’s what I said….that has been advertising the earth hour bullshit over Sydney.
    And it looks like a regular lightbulb, not one of the non-poisonous mercury* spiral shaped ones
    Sigghhh…the Age of Reason….dead as the dodo
    * proved to be so by new greenie science

    Posted by Rod C on 2008 03 20 at 02:53 AM • permalink

  31. Well, HK is going to give the finger to Gaia during Earth Hour. It’s the HK 7’s Rugby tournament that weekend, (thousands of rampaging barbarians in search of liquid sustenance) and the proprietors of establishments offering such succour will be damned if they are going to turn the lights off.

    Posted by Nic on 2008 03 20 at 03:20 AM • permalink

  32. Speaking of the SMH, they’re on a fucking roll with their ideological slant today. Barry Obama is in there as “guest columnist” and they have the muppet Bruce Wolpe (former Democrat insider, of course. Fat chance the SMH would hire a Republican to write a politics blog) opining that McCain has ruined his presidential chances because the effort in Iraq is doomed, doomed, doomed because McCain has to wear a flak jacket in Iraq, when the Iranian president doesn’t. (?)


    Oh, and well I’ll be damned, the Age is also running Barry’s piece. Jesus Christ.

    Posted by Quentin George on 2008 03 20 at 04:47 AM • permalink

  33. These little exercises aren’t really to save the earth, you know.  It’s to take names for when the Great Mother Borebot takes over.  And you’re all gonna be on my list!  Heh heh heh heh.  Keep talking.

    Posted by saltydog on 2008 03 20 at 05:08 AM • permalink

  34. The NSW Government supports Earth Hour because it increases the number of dark places it can meet property developers.

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 03 20 at 05:29 AM • permalink

  35. Clearly this Earth Hour, every town square will be needing added illumination.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2008 03 20 at 05:34 AM • permalink

  36. #16 Locototi.

    Umm. Yes. 300kg of ammonium nitrate is something I could have a lot of fun erm… vegetable growing with.

    Easier than this guncotton project I have going.

    How close are you to Canberra?

    MarkL
    Canberra

    Posted by MarkL on 2008 03 20 at 07:06 AM • permalink

  37. #35 that pic is just plain tired.

    Posted by surfmaster on 2008 03 20 at 07:11 AM • permalink

  38. Fortunately we may be in a short period of less rapid global warming .

    Who says they don’t notice data.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2008 03 20 at 07:36 AM • permalink

  39. #14 That’s me.  My lights stay up permanently as it is a little precarious to keep rigging them year after year.  That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

    I was at my local Thai this evening.  If it didn’t move, it had a light on it.  Definitely the place to be for Earth Hour.

    And I still want that Garlic.  I’ll e-mail you over the weekend.

    Posted by Irobot on 2008 03 20 at 07:38 AM • permalink

  40. I don’t get it; fairfax is run by 2, apparently, good, right-wing lads in Walker and Kirk, both with solid sporting histories; so how come their rags are left-wing vomit?

    Posted by cohenite on 2008 03 20 at 08:22 AM • permalink

  41. And while not related directly to “Earth Hour”, here’s a shocka about one wet dream of greenies.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 20 at 09:23 AM • permalink

  42. #41 TRJ Remember the furore 20 or so years back about Hg-contaminated seafood esp Tuna.
    So now the green slime are demanding we keep it in our homes as part of a heat source.  Clearly apart from the loss of reasoning capacity, these filth also suffer from memory failure

    Posted by Rod C on 2008 03 20 at 05:00 PM • permalink

  43. #40. Kirk has little to do with the newspapers. Fairfax newspapers are run by Brian McCarthy, the former chief of Rural Press. His only interest is advertising revenue. Journalism is something used to fill the gaps between adverts and at the lowest possible cost.

    The SMH and Age have been immune from McCarthyism. Can’t see it staying that way if the country moves into a recession.

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 03 20 at 06:22 PM • permalink

  44. hydrargyrumphobia

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 20 at 06:27 PM • permalink

  45. I’m not even in Australia, but I’m willing to burn a little extra electricity if it makes Gaia cry. I’ll rig an extra set of Christmas lights in my dorm.

    You go, Australia. Illumination Hour sounds like a blast!

    Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2008 03 20 at 09:07 PM • permalink

  46. #39, okies.

    Posted by Pogria on 2008 03 20 at 10:40 PM • permalink

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