At 8 pm tonight the lights in your city may well go off for Earth Hour. In 2007 it was Sydney, in 2008 Earth Hour has spread to 24 global cities, next year the world. At the home site you can upload a snappy video or click on the cities list (it was as slow as a wet week when I did it) or if you live where I do go straight to Brisbane and maybe get a “Gateway Time-out” screen as I did.
This one sent to me via email might be better. I suspect it’s on the Courier Mail server.
The Brisbane City Council is suggesting that you go to vantage point to look at the city that you can’t see. Sounds good, if you walk there and don’t use your car. So what are you going to do?
Candles seem to be in vogue. But you’ll have to ignore that candles made from paraffin are really from fossil hydrocarbons, are an extremely inefficient form of lighting, and are filthy in all sorts of ways.
Candles made from bees wax, we are told, are much less pollutant, but the future of candles may well be soy candles. Soy wax should be much more capable of mass production than bees wax. We are assured that they are
a relatively new natural - and renewable - alternative to paraffin, based on soy bean oil. It is clean burning, with no soot or CO2 emissions, and lasts up to 50% longer than paraffin wax candles of the same size.
Renewable in the sense that the CO2 to grow the soy came from the atmosphere in the first place. So there, that’s sorted. A soy candle-light dinner with a nice wine is good for the environment.
But if the romance overwhelms you and the lights go out remember that extra population is not what the planet needs!
Ah Earth Hour. Another fine example of pragmatic solutions to complex problems. Just like all the rock concerts for the environment out there. Great idea. What? You think it’s a totally pointless, worse-than-useless exercise in self-indulgent feel-good bullshit?
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You’re so cyncia. You’re like that guy, y’know, the one from England or somewhere who knows the prices of shit but doesn’t know, um, something else. Well anyway. Earth Hour is cool. I’m into the environment this year. We’ve got pollution and ozone layers n’ stuff and we just gotta get rid of it.
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It’s like my anti-fur campaign a few years ago? What? yes okay this is a mink coat but the anti-fur thing is, like, sooo 90s. I’m a 21st century person.
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Al oh Al? Have you seen Paris. Like, dude, she’s so intelligent n’ stuff.
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Stupid FUCKING monkeys.
At what point does “raising awareness” become an attempt to coerce and brainwash? FFS you’d have to be living a low carbon lifestyle not to have heard of, and probably formed and opinion on, the whole global warming megabusiness.
A timely reminder, Brian. Our average sized family unit is going in to Federation Sq., unfortunately. Will listen to bad music and freeze our arses off. Ironically.
Anyway, a great public event. Kids already wondering why the lights can’t be switched off every night. (But then my kids aren’t as smart as Adrien’s parents’ kid.)
Well sadly we can’t all be brilliant.
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Hey the lights can be switched off every night. For tens of thousands of years they were. It’s kinda nice actually all those stars. In fact I miss the night sky as I haven’t been under it for a while, unencumbered by millions of human lights that is.
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Interesting that you’re going to Fed Square. I mean what’s in Fed Square? Something that’s reducing carbon emissions I’m sure.
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Earth Hour is typically stupid symbolism accomplishing nothing. In fact it’s probably the stupidest bit of political symbolism I’ve ever seen and riding on the cusp of the 21st century that’s saying something. It’s a typical indulgence in this year’s fad issue designed to make the participants feel like they’re well-informed members of society or responsible citizens or that they care or some such tripe.
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But this is not some boutique issue. It’s a very fundamental economic problem. And like all such the real solutions will probably be generated by quiet people working hard in totally unglamorous circumstances.
When I was 17 in Brisburg (as was), the lights went out for about a month as Joh sought to slay the socialist demon of electricity workers’ unions. 9 months later there was a significant spike in the fertility rate.
Me, I just sat on the front porch every night with a novel, two candles and a bottle of scotch.
Like in the The Dam Busters? Ever heard of politics, Adrien? That’s where people have to agree to shit and stuff before things can be decided and stuff. People agree to shit and stuff after they have been informed and stuff.
[When I was 17 in Brisburg (as was), the lights went out for about a month as Joh sought to slay the socialist demon of electricity workers’ unions. 9 months later there was a significant spike in the fertility rate.]
It was the same outcome back in 1965 on the East coast of the US.
Here is WABC being slowly plunged into darkness.
[link]
Good one, wbb!
Adrien, you’ll notice that in the post I didn’t discuss whether the Earth Hour was worthwhile. Personally I’m not the demonstrating type. The only march I ever went on was the reconciliation march, when even Cossie walked over the bridge. But as a blog that occasionally discusses climate change I thought we should put up a post so you could belly-ache all over the place.
But if pushed on why bother this piece from TIME sums it up for me:
So I don’t mind if turning off the lights results in a bit more net carbon in the air, as long as the issue remains front of mind for the pollies and they know the people care.
I tend to have a bit of an ambivalent feeling about these sort of things too, particularly given the corporate exploitation of this idea, but I guess a bit of dramatisation of an important issue can do some good in the world.
wbb - I’m curious how one freezes one’s arse off ironically. But then maybe I’m handicapped by not living in the inner soy latte belt.
5. Mark
So the strike was more of a bonus than a bug for you?
Mark, were you drinking scotch under-age in Brisburg? Why didn’t Sir Terence come over to your front porch to arrest you, or at least to demand a bribe?
I hope the novels were entertaining. That was around 1980?
We even heard about the SEQEB strike in Victoria - by carrier pigeon naturally.
Adrien: yep it’s a bit of silliness isn’t it, but it doesn’t EXCLUDE all the hard economic, scientific, engineering, political work that is going on right now and must increase.
cheerio
Mole at 11, yep, particularly since we didn’t get much work done by candle light in the public service and I was supporting the strikers anyway!
1985 - Seqeb strike, Ambigulous. I’m not that old!
And under age drinking was what kept the wheels of the Joh machine greased. The licencing laws basically weren’t enforced. Too much scope for bribery and kickbacks to the coppers from pubs and clubs for that.
Very ethically ambiguous place, Brisbane in the 80s.
When I was at art school, a ‘conceptual’ art school, I spent quite a bit of time trying to think up ideas for performances, installations and ‘events’. I was studying sculpture (theoretically), but as the tutor and department head had told me that I didn’t have to produce anything necessarily tangible, their exacts words being, “you don’t have to make anything Caroline” I was left in something of a quandry about what to do exactly. One idea I toyed with which remained only in a conceptual state, was to contact the caretakers of all the high rise buildings in Sydney and have (!?) them turn off all the lights in these buildings, simultaneously at some predetermined hour. Voila. This would undoubtedly have made me feel enormously powerful and I can now see why I mused upon this
idea, sorry–concept. I would also need to publicise it, which meant, in reality, endeavouring to get my tutors and lecturers to appear remotely like they were vaguely or halfway paying any kind of attention to anything not contained within their rectums. I’m not sure what was supposed to happen after the lights went out. Nothing very much I suspect.It is now a reality, no thanks whatsoever to me. I still think it would be good to watch all the lights in Sydney go out at precisely the same second.
Thanks for the reminder about this, I actually thought it was last night.
“And under age drinking was what kept the wheels of the Joh machine greased.”
And illegal brothels, backyard abortion centres, at a guess. Never ending greasy palms. Sadly nothing has changed.
I have a few gadgets, bought off the internet, that light up my life, solar wise.
Talking cheap shed lighting etc that i have inside. I am already so virtuous that i will not need to use one of those carbon producing candles, tonight. We have had enough power outages, recently, to have made this plan sensible backup, as well.
Well, I managed the following effort. After all, dissenting with the dominant paradigm and speaking truth to power are OK things to do, yes?
63 light globes
5 Kerosene lamps
1 6 cyl idling (V8 is in the shop)
1 wife ironing while chortling loudly
1 BBQ going
1 Weber going
1 coal fire going
4 computers going
1 son made a 1200km jet flight today
2 gas tops going
1 electric oven going
3 TV’s going (plus a bonus kid with TV and stereo going while he worked the computer - quite a trick)
11 candles
4 floodlights
1 major-league stereo system
How did you good people do?
MarkL
Canberra
Happy hour of power!
Mark:
Frank:
Guys, I love youse, but back when I was slaving in the coalmines of alt.folklore.urban, we tried and tried to find a single reliable cite supporting this oft-repeated (in various locations) Blackout Baby Boom factoid.
My once-fellow AFUista Barbara Mikkelson at snopes.com has documented and debunked alleged Baby Booms (Blackouts, Snowstorms, Post-Disasters) for years. Here’s just two:
NYC 1965
9/11
Mediawatch even did a segment debunking the Baby Booms in 2003, when an excited reporter predicted that a baby boom would occur after a massive blackout in the NE USA and Canada. As David Emery of about.com reported, the predicted baby boom failed to arrive.
Honestly Mark, you’d make some urban folklorist’s decade if there actually was a documented baby boom in Brisbane 9 months after the 1985 blackouts.
Well, how did we go indeed, MarkL? Not as well as you. (Legend, mate!) But - the music was very good despite my misplaced fears; John So was so-so; Brumby was at his uncharismatic best; the weather was mild due to heavy cloud cover - all in all a nice night’s entertainment. Kids lurved the fire-dancing and full milk ice-creams. And to top it all off, FXH stayed at home in Zone 3.
It was hardly a protest by the way. It was exactly as billed. Either you get it or you don’t.
We did it - and I guess it was a reminder that we really didnt need lights blaring. Maybe there’ll be some flow-on effect on other days; especially as our daughter absolutely loved the candles deal.
candle power! We also tried out a nifty little torch powrred by turning a handle: pretty good.
BTW wbb message posted at 9.55pm Melb time, so definitely outside the Earth Hour curfew.
Sorry Mark, faulty memory.
You are indeed 5 years younger. I did the sums and wondered about the answer (based on incorrect 1980).
John So rules, Brumby’s as unlike a wild horse as you’re likely to find, Federation Square’s not square; puzzlements abound.
I turned off everything except Doc Martin and the fridge. And I’m here to tell you that here in Adders it’s a two-cat night, so it was something of a sacrifice.
wbb
I think Skeeter beats me hollow. He had 31 cylinders going plus a 35HP woodchipper, as well as as many lights etc as I had blazing away. My place was like a Christmas tree.
Next year, I’m booking one of those Kennards diesel-genset and 40′ telescopic pole with floodlights on it. That’ll floodlight half the street.
I also ducked up and down the street. Only one house dark (and she’s away, we are collecting the mail) so overall, sort of an inverse earth hour in my street. As the bloke next door had a floodlit bonfire of about 20 car tyres shooting flames 30 feet high. Lucky he’s a fireman, or people might have called up the station. I think the Hour of Power won this one locally.
To misquote ‘Deliverance’, the noise was probably Gaia ’squealing like a pig’.
MarkL
canberra
The flow-on effects indeed, LE. Last year Earth Hour was Sydney. Only. This year it’s tens of cities world-wide. Next year it might be more.
Each time these things are put on more and more people get to learn about climate change and what causes it. Most people do not understand the meaning of jargon such as: climate change, global warming, GHG pollution etc etc.
Public education takes a bit of effort, is all. Smarty pants like MarkL obviously know it all, but for plenty of others out here, these things are significant educational tools. (btw MarkL - Carbon Footprint Stomping is very 2007)
MarkL wrote:
Geez, if you’re so eager to be called a dickhead, why not just write it on your forehead?
There’s a big swinging dick element here. Make of that what you will.
… and the fridge now off..Pavlov’s Cat .
Unfair to big swinging dicks, Helen. They have their up side*, whereas with this lot it’s all just underbelly.**
* I’m sorry, I would have liked to have put that another way.
** That too.
Adrien: “Earth Hour is typically stupid symbolism… In fact it’s probably the stupidest bit of political symbolism I’ve ever seen…”
Well all I can say is, come to the US and have a look at the Obama campaign! For sheer stupidity it beats Earth Hour by a country parsec, and it’s crypto-fascist to boot! (Though, sadly, far more dangerous in reality than mere symbolism tends to be.) Hey, I wonder how many million dim bulbs Obama has got burning for him all year long? Somebody should tell him they’re harming TEH PLANET!
Never let it be said that lefties don’t love fascism, just as long as it’s THEIR flavor of fascism…
Rooting for Hillary then, j_p_z?
“But if the romance overwhelms you and the lights go out remember that extra population is not what the planet needs!”
Tell that to all the people on the parental leave thread who were rooting (sorry) for a massive swag of public cash to subsidise procreation.
My preferred policy would be no parental/maternal/paternal leave of any sort (well, OK, maybe one day off when the baby makes its appearance - although good employees should try to give birth on weekends), no Baby Bonus either, and in fact I’d impose a baby tax for good measure.
Adrien: “Earth Hour is typically stupid symbolism… In fact it’s probably the stupidest bit of political symbolism I’ve ever seen…”
No, I think MarkL gets that award.
I’ve just heard on the radio that Brisbane really got with the program. More people flocked to Mt Coot-tha to see the lights go out than they have there on New Year’s eve or the annual River Festival. You can betcha they didn’t walk or ride a bike.
tigtog — Ironically, I find myself in the position of kind of saying, Yeah, I am sort of rooting for the Hillster, although my real preference still remains either Christopher Walken or else a baked potato.
“There’s small choice in rotten apples.”
– The Taming of the Shrew (ironically enough)
Look at it this way: McCain is very bad and unpleasant business indeed, and Barack “Wait, I can explain!” Obama is simply unfit for the office. The Clintons have their issues, to be sure, but Bill’s run was marked by a fair bit of prosperity and relative peace, and during the First Age of Clinton politics actually became so boring (as it should be) that Washington was reduced to absurd infighting over his sex life, simply to have something to argue about. Not a bad place to be, really, when you consider the train-wreck that followed starting in 2000. Too many people forget that. Especially the Democratic National Committee, whose memory lapses on that score are a sign of profound professional incompetence, and may well cost the Dems the White House in a year when they should be acting like they own the place.
Obama claims he can unite the races(!!), and the country. But in reality, he can’t even unite the Democratic Party. Kind of tells ya something, dunnit?
For all her faults, Hillary is still a serious, realistic grownup who actually knows where all the bodies are buried — a professional politician rather than a would-be visionary, and that’s a good thing. I actually kind of like her pathological self-interest, because it means she’s not an ideologue: she’s for Hillary, not for some absurd Cause. At least we know where she stands. Forgive me if I point out that the politician Obama most resembles is actually… George W. Bush! viz., an underqualified, charismatic semi-competent who campaigns as a moderate but is actually an extremist ideological crackpot, who doesn’t even have the side benefit of actually knowing what he’s doing.
McCain is an honorable patriot but an unsound politician and, like Obama, his biggest problem is that he simply should not be the president. (That’s not a condemnation of character, btw: for instance, I shouldn’t be the president either. Most people shouldn’t.) The best one can say about McCain is that if he really is the only thing standing between Obama and a disastrous Obama presidency, well then… So, uh, go Hillary! I, you know, guess.
Back to Earth Hour. I notice that the Google page today is black; but if they had really been serious about this, though, shouldn’t they have totally shut Google down for the day?
Say what you like about MarkL’s effort—I wouldn’t fancy paying his power or fuel bills—at least the ‘Hour of Power’ is an actual sincere effort at making a valid political point, that being that the consumer choices made by individuals are of little to no consequence in doing anything for climate without government and international action.
Earth Hour to me stinks of the worst kind of consumerism-in-reverse; defining personal virtue in terms of individual effort, and reducing the political agency of citizens to the choice of buy-or-don’t-buy.
BTW, MarkL, you forgot to run the clothes dryer and the washing machine on spin. And you could have left the fridge door open, too, and run the air conditioners in your car (if fitted). Can improve, 6/10
During Earth Hour I watched TV with the lights off. But then again I do that every night. In fact I usually have the whole flat in darkness, exzcept when I need a light. And I always turn off everything except the fridge and (in the daytimre) the TV and DVD player. Most of the time. So what’s that different? Well, the whole world did it. For a whole hour most people were thinking of carbon footprints, etc. If they think of it for an hour, they might start thinking of it all the time. Our pollies might actually listen and DO something more than talk.
Of course we could always go back to the horse, the beeswax candle and the burning lamp as it was before gaslight, I suppose.
If we were willing to live without cars, air conditioning, electric powered heaters etc. Somehow, I don’t think we are. I once tried to live as if I were in the Middle Ages for about four days, (in the company of lots of other people. The idea was appealing, but not the reality.Smoke, dark, half-cooked lamb, itchy straw - need I go on?
And how is this different to beeswax?
Brian, a maker of candles who claims that wax combustion creates no C02 emissions is lying. Just because it’s on ebay doesn’t mean they’re allowed to play fast and loose with Fair Trading legislation.
Liam, I was aware of both those issues, which is why I used the phrases “we are told” and “we are assured”. If you can google and find authoritative information, then please do, but I had used up the time I had available.
On soy wax, it seems to me that all the candles required to satisfy the mass industry could be made from soy without compromising food supplies. I’m not sure there is enough bees wax available, though Mark tells me the Catholic church already uses it for candles.
Paul B, there’s always this. My dad remembers them from his 1930s rural childhood.
Adders too, Brian. 300 businesses, public buildings, and houses urban, suburban and rural. Apparently a number of restaurants were offering special candlelit dinners, though it doesn’t say what they did about fridges and stoves. Let’s not get too carried away here.
It seems to me that the division of opinion on Earth Hour (except for cynics like Liam who are mindful of the cynicism of those who are out to cash in no matter what the event) is almost identical to the division of opinion on the Stolen Generations apology: people are either capable of non-literal-mindedness and understand and appreciate symbolism and its power, or they aren’t and don’t (and yes of course this is roughly left/right, though blurred by one’s attitude to materialism). The people who preface the word ’symbolism’ with ‘mere’ or ‘empty’ are by and large those who use the same words to qualify ‘rhetoric’ — whereas in fact both rhetoric and symbolism are massively powerful forces. Ask Barack Obama.
For those who scorn the switching off, I’d like to point out that one year when I was really struggling to make a living I was much more careful than usual about switching things off or not switching them on in the first place. And my power bills were halved.
Sorry, I think the claim there is that soy takes carbon out of the air while growing, which is then returned by burning. Presumably the same is true of bees wax.
On symbolism and its power. PC, I don’t think there’s an analogy between Earth Hour and the Parliamentary apology. The apology did not aim to raise awareness, or seek to achieve a concrete measurable end; its power came from the simple fact that it was a long time coming. I could add that the Parliamentary apology also gave an easy exculpation to the individuals who participated for ideology, religion, money and fun in Indigenous dispossession, but that’s another thread’s worth of stoush entirely.
A better analogy here for the futility of Earth Hour is the use of asbestos. When people started to realise that asbestos was a dangerous material, everyone rightly demanded of the government that it be banned, universally. Individual actions by homeowners ie. ‘well I don’t use asbestos’ or individual builders boycotting asbestos would have been made quite futile simply by the fact of other people’s—James Hardie’s, say, and the RAAF’s—continued use. Asbestos, like excess carbon, is a public evil no matter who is responsible for it. In fact, organised attempts to counter asbestos use at the individual consumerist level would have given recalcitrant asbestos manufacturers that many more excuses and causes to seek exemptions.
Awareness is not the issue when it comes to carbon; all the symbolism in the world is not going to convince American aluminium smelters and Chinese steelworks and Indian coal-fired plants to shut down, nor prevent often already-illegal deforestation. I agree that rhetoric is a powerful political tool, but Earth Hour is a peculiarly apolitical, individualist bit of rhetoric.
And yes, let’s hear it for efficiency. Lower energy use through reduced or more efficient consumption is a public benefit, not just an environmental one.
I agree with Liam in being unhappy about the logic of Earth Hour. I don’t think it’s remotely like the apology, and I don’t actually think the latter was strictly symbolic because an apology is a deed that can only be executed in words. Climate change is very much a situation where symbolic gestures are simply part of the problem if they substitute for effective action. We didn’t observe any special measures in terms of switching things off yesterday, we did however plant six trees in the yard, four of which will eventually produce food.
I thought Earth Hour was not such a bad way to spend an hour. Not that I affectionately recall the Joh phenomenon that was the SEQEB blackout. It did remind me of the frequent blackouts and brownouts in my childhood. They were fun -guess I was easily amused, living in a town that didn’t even get TV until the seventies. I wouldn’t mind if Earth Hour was more than an annual event.
And what Brian quoted: “Just because an act is symbolic doesn’t mean it is empty.”
I think that it unrealistically atomistic to insist that a mass political(in the broad sense of political) act is symbol without substance.
Not true, Liam. Government legislation requires political backing from a sufficient number of aware people. Awareness is not arrived at by any one particular means; and Earth Hour (which is one recent initiative by one organisation) has already introduced a great number of people to this issue.
Large industrial polluters will be forced to comply with new legislation (eg carbon trading) once political pressure build to a certain strength.
Liam could have dismissed in similarly cynical terms any number of important political actions of recent years that have cumulatively added to the momentum eg Inconvenient Truth; any number of Green campaigns over the years; Tim Flannery’s advocacy etc etc. It is only very recently that carbon limits could be derided by as a wicked Green attempt to send us back to the caves. (eg Brandis’s and his green nazis). Symbolic action (ie Politics 101) has made such simple resistance now impossible.
(And of course “consumers” switching of domestic lighting can’t solve the problem - and nobody claims it can.)
Well folks, we could no doubt look over the great popular protest movements of history and identify numerous completely useless actions taken early on.
Its all part of feeling the way to popular mobilisation. And I suspect this one will have a consciousness raising impact in excess of most.
No, neither do I; that isn’t what I was saying. The analogy I was drawing was not between the events, but between people’s attitudes to the events, insofar as their attitudes were based on their notions about the value of symbolism.
Adrien says;
I really enjoyed Earth Hour in Sydney last night. The darkness made the two massive displays of fireworks organised by Sydney Council even more spectacular. Though a southerly blew the smoke up our street settings off smoke alarms till the wee hours.
Ambigulous says;
A sort of wave of the future that. There might be some similarly good ideas in this widely praised book by William Manchester.
Last night in Melbourne when the Victorian premier dutifully got up to speak at the Earth Hour concert in Federation Sq., his speech was packed with statistics and measures of government action. All well and good. Nevertheless I believe that the symbolism of turning off the city lights provided as least as effective a political effect upon Melbourne’s citizens.
The message was not a capitalist ploy to say that all that needs to be done is for “consumers” to turn off their own lights. The message was that the way our City lives and functions is causative of damage to our environment. A City that belongs to all but from the perspective of some, more often belongs to corporate capitalism.
Looking around the city skyline, people were noticing which skyscrapers had switched off and which hadn’t. It was clear that we all had a part to play. But it was also clear which companies hadn’t bothered. The effect was not to be duped into naively thinking that is only up to each of us as an individual “consumer”. There was more of the feeling of “those bastards in that big blgd over there haven’t done their bit”. It actually empowered people to believe that they could get recalcitrant corporates to comply with the will of the majority.
Stuff like that is not empty symbolism.
These moments signifiy the movement of a dscourse from the margins (where is denied and out of sight) into the mainstream (where it is acknowledged and legitmised). However watered down these feel good gestures appear to be, they are the beginning of an agreement en masse, that that something needs to be done. It doesnt matter if its a hokey feel good exercise. Its significance lies in the mainstreaming of climatechange awareness. Gestures such as these are the beginning of a long road towards responsibility on a societal and global level.
Another ‘cute’ gesture would be the adoption of Knut as a mascot for cimate change campaigns.
“Dr. Gerald Uhlich, of the Berlin zoo’s board of trustees, stated that because of his vast popularity, Knut has become a means of communication and that he has the ability to “draw attention to the environment in a nice way. Not in a threatening, scolding way.”[44] As a result, the German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel officially adopted Knut as the mascot for a conference on endangered species to be held in Bonn in 2008.[44] The minister met with Knut soon after his zoo debut, commenting that although Knut was in safe hands, “worldwide polar bears are in danger and if Knut can help the cause, then that is a good thing.”[16]” (Wiki - Knut).
Now clearly, Knut is a problematic emblem. Recent reports suggest he has become a rather large psycho polar bear addicted to fame and adulation. I still think he is cute and would you have killed him as nature intended? No, I would argue that this in itself is a narrative for climate change awareness. These gestures are an entry point. Where humans who have caused the problem can become personally invested in wanting it fixed, through the invoking of emotion (knut is cute), or providing the opportunity for a sense of agency (like Earth Hour, however fallacious that is at the present moment) and thats the beginning of mainstream change.
Casey, (48),
Animals are only human.
And humans, Paul, are only animals. Animals who need incentives to perform their tricks.
Here is the latest pic of
Knut
i cant link anymore - here if you want to look
[link]
Dr. Cat: “people are either capable of non-literal-mindedness and understand and appreciate symbolism and its power, or they aren’t and don’t…”
Quite true. Take the case of, say, George W. Bush. He seems to have actually thought that, because he saw some people symbolically pull down a statue of Saddam, and then he got to wear a spiffy symbolic flight suit, the war in Iraq was won and over with. Seems almost as if he built an entire idiotic policy based on symbolism and its power. Then Dick Cheney gave him another cookie and he got to go back to sleep, where he’s a Viking.
Had a look at the Earth Hour website from the link at top. Didn’t seem like any cities from either China or any of the major oil-producing countries were joining up. Odd, that; don’t they understand that they…? Ah, never mind. Also couldn’t help noticing some of the jaw-droppingly stupid rhetoric used on the site. Note to real environmentalists and scientists: if you really want to convince the fence-sitters and skeptics about all this, muzzle these people and hide them at the bottom of the sea. Oh, speaking of which…
wbb: “The effect was not to be duped into naively thinking that is only up to each of us as an individual “consumer”. There was more of the feeling of “those bastards in that big blgd over there haven’t done their bit”. …Stuff like that is not empty symbolism.”
You’re right, it’s not empty symbolism; it’s the first stage of rabies.
Tigtog, it was reported at the time in the local press as stats from the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages. So should be mouldering away in the archives of the Courier-Mail - or on microfiche!
JPZ — I said “understand”.
Dr. Cat —
Oh, yeah, I know, I’m just having some fun. Although to be honest, I *was* going to swat around your “Ask Barack Obama” line for a little bit, but what I was going to do just seemed too, well, mean. And easy. And true. And besides, these days Bush-bashing is rated E for Everybody!
“Nevertheless I believe that the symbolism of turning off the city lights provided as least as effective a political effect upon Melbourne’s citizens. …”
But wbb, surely the “effect” was on those citizens who turned out for the Earth Hour concert, or were watching from some other vantage point. People, I suspect, who no need no convincing on this issue.
Rather than “consciousness raising”, it seems a classic example of preaching to the converted.
And… Paulus?
If I’m converted, I go to church every Sunday and have that conversion reinforced by the preacher! There’s nothing wrong with that.
I also think it’s probably wrong to imagine that these sorts of things don’t have some use for spreading as well as reinforcing awareness.
Brian -
I did Brian. I wasn’t having a go at you. You were using Earth Hour in order to discuss things like the efficiency of candles and alternatives etc. This is the kind of thinking that works. Good post.
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I disagree with the Time magazine article. I think the problem is not primarily political but economic and technological. Political responses are required but I’d say ethics is more important. People need to be more mindful of their consumption. Should they do so the market will bend over backwards to fulfil them.
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Eliot -
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I’m glad you enjoyed it Eliot but Earth Hour doesn’t make the conomy more sustainable in any way. The consciouness raising argument is bollocks as well. This relates to the above point re ethics. We need to be mindful of our real comnsumption not just buy stuff labelled ‘green’ or participate in (carbon spewing) concerts and fireworks bonanzas then going home and feeling good that we did our part. I went out last night (after the Earth Hour stuff) and the city was caked in garbage like it always is. Sustainability is not a ‘Save the Pandas’ type issue. It’s ultimately a survival one.
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Francis -
Well I live in the innercity soy
lattelong black belt and I’m not sure either. I’ll let you know if I figure it out. Meanwhile I can keep you posted in the latest development in the Perverted Arts.Well yes, wbb, but my dismissiveness of Green campaigns is very much fuel for another thread. I’ve nothing *against* purely symbolic awareness raising activity that results only in ignominious defeat; hey, I marched behind a big fucking paper puppet head Against The War in 2003 with everyone else.
I object to the symbolism of Earth Hour because I think it’s the *wrong* symbolism.
…
PC: gotcha. I think we’re reading from the same page.
j_p_z, I trust you’re aware that tigtog’s message @ [29] may be read in an alternative way by Aussies.
“Rooting” here has an earthier meaning than “supporting [a team or an individual]”. I refer to an old slogan, “Fighting for Peace is like F***ing for Chastity.”
That may point you in a positive direction. “Rooting for Hillary” is a quaint idea, but I can think of plenty of better reasons.
la Mme Sarkozy, anyone?
Is she Mme Sarkozy or still Mademoiselle Bruni?
OK, Liam, everything can be improved, I agree. (I don’t like to put stuff down just coz it ain’t perfect, though.) How would you restructure the symbolism to better effect?
My personal taste runs along the lines of holding a Carbon Footprint Stomping event in order to offend the Average Australian. I’d structure a fest aimed at ppl like MarkL and put on a Burn Gaia Burn Festival - with every manner of incendiary smokin’, chokin’ activity aiming to maximise CO2 emmissions. (Am being serious.) The question would then be starkly put for all to personally confront. Is C02 pollution benign or not? How sure are you? Sure enough to allow gratuitous CO2 pollution in the name of anti-AGW rhetoric?
I’m certainly against gratuitous carbon, wbb, but the people you have to convince about the need to use energy efficiently are not people like MarkL. I have a feeling, based on his pleasure at measuring it all, that he’s quite aware of the benefits of efficient modern technology over less efficient, more polluting technology.
In fact, let’s take MarkL up on the challenge to speak truth to power. The Government has the power to make carbon emissions part of its international relations policy. Kevin Rudd is talking big about the new round of Doha talks. I’d have definitely supported an Earth Hour that had as its premise:
It’s a crappy slogan but I’m a big-words socialist at heart. The new revolution will be the electrification of the roads, etc. etc. etc.
Working like a dog again this weekend.
Next one looks better.
Woops - misthreaded!
Feel feel to delete these irrelevancies!
A very worthy cause, Liam. And you’ll be needing some solid numbers to get that one up and running. If there are any graduates of Earth Hour 101, I’ll recommend they enroll in your post-grad next yr.
One of the things very wrong with Earth Hour in Melbourne last night was that AGL handed out tiny torches for people to turn on when the lights were switched off. (But an old socialist doesn’t need to be told that the capitalists were there muddying the message, I’m sure.)
“…… but the people you have to convince about the need to use energy efficiently are not people like MarkL.”
I doubt that this reactionary position will ever change. Tt is just the petulant foot stomping of The Centre for Independent Studies who are desperate for attention now that their hero has gone.
“Is she Mme Sarkozy or still Mademoiselle Bruni?”
I believe it’s Mme Bruni-Sarkozy.
But I think the titles Madame or Mademoiselle aren’t related to marital status, but age. French women, once they reach adulthood, tend to be called ‘Madame’. Just sayin’
Which is why higher electricity prices, as unpopular as they would be, will lead to a reduction in carbon emissions. Most households have a lot of fat to cut in the electricity usage area.
The other problem is that whilst people care enough to turn off their lights for Earth Hour, they don’t care enough to purchase greenpower and make a substantive difference.
Chris - the thing that maddens me about green power is that it is more expensive than coal power. Surely a simple direct effective no-brain action government could take tomorrow is to subsidise green power so that it comes in slightly less than - rather than slightly more than - coal power.
The scrambling by generators to cleanup their acts would be a stampede.
Turns out Canberrra had the highest participiation rate in earth hour. 78%.
Won’t MarkL, of same, be chuffed.
Lefty E says;
I bet Zimbabwe, Cuba and North Korea can beat that. Especially North Korea where the lights go off for days at a time through most of the year.
wbb says;
That would help foster the illusion that it was “cheaper”, yes. Then the subsisdy could be taken out of people’s incomes osme other way. Obviously not by taxing something they can afford to do without - because then they wouldn’t but it and nobody would pay the subsidy.
I know! Add a “green tax” on chemotherapy or insulin or food to pay for the “cheaper” green power.
You could fund subsidies via green power consumption rebate for a growing clean energy industry via bracket creep, Ramsey. Clean energy capacity takes time to build afterall.
Well I think better would be a combination of removing subsidies on coal power and applying a carbon tax so coal power ends up more expensive than green power. Rising electricity prices would encourage people to get serious about efficiency where there are the most gains to be had, rather than on the generation side where it is much more expensive.
You do need to help the poor with rising prices, but in many cases this can be done through helping them with the purchase of energy efficient devices and heating/cooling improvements in housing (insulation, curtains, awnings, etc) rather than by giving them a wad of cash.
And very sadly only about 15% of Canberrans buy any green power at all - in a region which is financially very well off compared to the rest of the country.
Chris says;
Remember the discussion over at the “Everyone loves Garnaut” thread about the price-elsaticity of domestic power?
Russia’s nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly Atomstroyexport is currently building five nuclear power plants in China, India and Iran worth 4.5 billion dollars. The company has also won a tender to build a plant in Belene in Bulgaria. Talks are under way to build nuclear plants in Morocco, Vietnam and South Africa.
[link]
So, should we boycott South African rugby teams again?
I would take the 78% participation figure for Canberra with a very large grain of salt. The view from the back of my place looks out over most of the Tuggeranong valley, and that ‘participation’ was just not visible. The same AMR poll claims that 56% of Sydney-ites also took part. Interesting claims, but that is all they are, there is nothing much to back them. The 11.6% power drop has also been widely touted by ACTEW AGL - but those who work there are saying that it’s BS, they reported the usual power usage drop over that period and claimed it was Earth hour related.
But let me grant