earth hour?

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vmpolesov

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Will you be observing earth hour from 8-9pm?

I may observe it by dialling down the temperature on my kegerator a couple degrees. I think it would be irresponsible to let idled electrical generating capacity go to waste.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
Yes, I will turn the lights off. Then I'll light candles and lanterns so that I might keep my carbon footprint the same.
So burning tires for light wouldn't be a good idea?
 
Okay the elephant in the room here is that this gesture like most enviro-stuff is just a feel -good gesture. If google were really serious about saving energy they would use more energy efficient servers or their founders not have a personal luxury 767 get for flying around in. People who really want to conserve energy would hang the laundry out instead of using the dryer, etc. So this is not really about saving energy, it is a way for people to feel good about themselves and for corporations to deflect criticism and say "see, we care!"
 
vmpolesov said:
Okay the elephant in the room here is that this gesture like most enviro-stuff is just a feel -good gesture. If google were really serious about saving energy they would use more energy efficient servers or their founders not have a personal luxury 767 get for flying around in. People who really want to conserve energy would hang the laundry out instead of using the dryer, etc. So this is not really about saving energy, it is a way for people to feel good about themselves and for corporations to deflect criticism and say "see, we care!"


It's just like buying a prius. Nothing like paying more for a car that puts out similar emissions, has worse build quality and costs 10,000$ more than a comparable regular gas-engined vehicle. At least the Chevy Volt will ACTUALLY have potential to have a smaller environmental "footprint."

That said, I drive a 1980's corvette with the AIR system disabled and a catalytic convertor that's partially gutted.;)
 
I think the whole idea behind Earth Hour is less about the actual impact, and more about getting people (who wouldn't otherwise talk about things like this) talking about it.

Seems to be working, if this thread is any indication...
 
I will but my beer won't. I try and try to expalin it to my beer, but all it does is give me the silent treatment. <sigh>

:D


Earth hour isn't about saving some energy in one shot. It's an awareness inititive and also can show governements that people do care.

They usually care by wanting someone else to fix it though. lol
 
Every day is thermostat setback day here. And not just for one hour, it's ALL night.

Loved my last job. There was ONE light switch for all of the halls and cubical areas per floor. The datacenter actually had TWO light switches, one for each side of the building.
 
i'll do it, we usually don't have many lights on at night to begin with... altho with a $30 electric bill in the winter and a $120 bill in the summer.... i think we'll concentrate on using the air condition less.
 
so we're supposed to turn the lights off in the house, and go drive around in the car for an hour? i'll make sure to peel out in the drive....;)
 
I'm not observing this hippy crap because I saw this video that said it would be warm because AL Gore invented global warming or something, and it's been a long-ass, freezing winter in Michigan. The "evidence" of global warming is lost when I'm splitting cord after cord of firewood.
 
vmpolesov said:
Okay the elephant in the room here is that this gesture like most enviro-stuff is just a feel -good gesture. If google were really serious about saving energy they would use more energy efficient servers or their founders not have a personal luxury 767 get for flying around in.
Google is very active in the movement to create energy efficient servers. They do a lot of research in making AC -> DC equipment power efficient. Most consumer PSUs are only about 70% efficient loosing the other 30% as heat. Google has been pushing for efficiencies of >90%. Google is also a major player in hard drive power efficiency. Intel and AMD have been pushing CPU efficiency, but that is just a small piece of the overall power usage in a computer system.

It really is in the best interest of companies like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo to promote and research power efficient computer architectures. The cost of power and cooling is a major drain on their profits. If they can convince PC hardware manufacturers to improve power efficiencies then they'll see a significant savings in their bills. So sure they tow to the Green line, but it will also help their Bottom line.
 
newell456 said:
I'm not observing this hippy crap because I saw this video that said it would be warm because AL Gore invented global warming or something, and it's been a long-ass, freezing winter in Michigan. The "evidence" of global warming is lost when I'm splitting cord after cord of firewood.


That's why the alarmists have changed it from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change." Then they can still be "right."
 
Laurel said:
That's why the alarmists have changed it from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change." Then they can still be "right."

Or maybe because the theory has changed and the language was adjusted to accomodate the changes in theory?

I'm not sure if I agree that there is a catostrophic event on the near horizon but I do acknowledge that my local experience with weather is not a good way to measure if planentary averages and norms. And personally, I think that having healthy conversations about such things is a good thing so I try to avoid engaging in the new form of political discourse, which I refer to a 'talking point polarization bull****'.
 
Laurel said:
That's why the alarmists have changed it from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change." Then they can still be "right."

Global warming and climate change are closely related, but they aren't the same thing.

Of course nobody is going to believe anything I say on the subject since I am only a university-trained climate change ecologist, and couldn't possibly be trusted when authorities like Al Gore on the one side, and Jim Inhofe on the other know so much more and are so much more unbiased. After all, I am just into it for the grant money, right? :mad:
 
There is a lot of evidence to the contrary of what many of the scientists that tend to profit off of the climate change concept have, but much of the media and certainly all of the people who have things to gain by that concept are completely unwilling to admit that there is the possibility that humans have very little impact on global climate change.

I should have been more clear in my first post. I do actually believe that a certain amount of climate change is taking place, but I think that humans are having a negligible effect on it. I think it has a lot more to do with solar cycles, and even if there is a tie-in with carbon in the atmosphere, who is to say that global temperatures increasing didn't cause the oceans to offgas(we all know that a liquid's ability to hold dissolved gasses decreases with temperature) all of this deadly carbon into the atmosphere. And why do humans think that this type of climate and "global temperature" is the "right" one for the planet? We know that the earth has been very warm in the past without human intervention(unless dinosaurs were driving around in Excursions and Escalades). A good read - "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 years"

The same organizations that perpetuated the "little ice age" theory years and years ago are the same organizations that seem to perpetuate global warming, and terrified many people about the hole in the ozone layer about a decade ago.
 
Laurel said:
There is a lot of evidence to the contrary of what many of the scientists that tend to profit off of the climate change concept have, but much of the media and certainly all of the people who have things to gain by that concept are completely unwilling to admit that there is the possibility that humans have very little impact on global climate change.

I should have been more clear in my first post. I do actually believe that a certain amount of climate change is taking place, but I think that humans are having a negligible effect on it. I think it has a lot more to do with solar cycles, and even if there is a tie-in with carbon in the atmosphere, who is to say that global temperatures increasing didn't cause the oceans to offgas(we all know that a liquid's ability to hold dissolved gasses decreases with temperature) all of this deadly carbon into the atmosphere. And why do humans think that this type of climate and "global temperature" is the "right" one for the planet? We know that the earth has been very warm in the past without human intervention(unless dinosaurs were driving around in Excursions and Escalades). A good read - "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 years"

The same organizations that perpetuated the "little ice age" theory years and years ago are the same organizations that seem to perpetuate global warming, and terrified many people about the hole in the ozone layer about a decade ago.

Please read this instead, and you may begin to realize that your statements may seem intuitive, but intuition serves one about as well on climate change than it does with quantum mechanics and general relativity (which are considerably less complex).
 
ArcaneXor said:
Please read this instead, and you may begin to realize that your statements may seem intuitive, but intuition serves one about as well on climate change than it does with quantum mechanics and general relativity (which are considerably less complex).

I certainly don't have time to read all of that tonight, but I have it bookmarked and I'll work my way through it. I am certainly no expert. Out of curiosity, as a climatologist, what is your opinion?
 
Laurel said:
I certainly don't have time to read all of that tonight, but I have it bookmarked and I'll work my way through it. I am certainly no expert. Out of curiosity, as a climatologist, what is your opinion?

On Earth Hour? It's cute, it's probably not harmful, and if it makes people feel good, wonderful. I did it with my family, playing card games in candlelight. It was lots of fun. But like the Kyoto protocol, it doesn't really achieve much in terms of climate change mitigation.

On millennial-scale climate oscillations? I am familiar with them and think they are understudied, but they are just one part of an extremely complicated puzzle. When it comes to climate change, there are no simple answers. You've got five major components (and myriads of sub-components) of a system that interact and respond to external forcing on time- and spatial scales spanning many orders of magnitude.
 
Earth Hour felt like one of those stupid "Let's not buy gas for a day" kind of things, so I ignored it. Meh, turns out I was sleeping anyways when it happened. ArcaneXor, that link is a wonderful read. I'm reading through it now.
 
I'm with Laurel:

The earth goes through warmer and colder phases WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION. If you choose to think we have something to do with it, GOOD FOR YOU!!!

I agree that we should do everything that we can to consume fossil fuels at the slowest rate that we can, adn we should try to live as "Green" as we can, but I don't think it has much to do with the temperature of the planet.

Just my 2¢
 
PeteOz77 said:
I'm with Laurel:

The earth goes through warmer and colder phases WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION. If you choose to think we have something to do with it, GOOD FOR YOU!!!

I agree that we should do everything that we can to consume fossil fuels at the slowest rate that we can, adn we should try to live as "Green" as we can, but I don't think it has much to do with the temperature of the planet.

Just my 2¢

I agree, the earth does go through warm and cold cycles: naturally. Things like volcanoes are actually responsible for releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, thus introducing the: Greenhouse gases.

The problem is that the concentration of greenhouse gases has increased considerably. Is human activity to blame? Who knows. Most likely we are having some kind of effect. It's hard to quantify how much responsibility we have.

On topic: Our family respected earth hour. It's not going to change a lot, but it's good to see people care at least a bit.
 
I think its been said before but the point wasn't to have any real impact on the consuption (like the people who advicate nto buying gas for a day so they can try and have an impact on prices). The 1 hour thing was jsut a way to start coversations on the subect to 'green' stuff. (although the while 'green movement peaked, as far as I am concerned, when NBC did a night of 'green programming'. Which amounted to them talking aobut 'green' issues on all their sitcoms.
 
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