March 28, 2008
Will You Turn Off Your Lights for an Earth Hour?
Tomorrow, March 29, from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. millions of people will turn of their lights to make a statement about climate change. It's all a part of Earth Hour, a green event conceived by the World Wildlife Fund. Over 100 U.S. cities are participating in the do-goodery, including Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, and, of course, San Francisco. While this won't do much insofar as saving the planet--which is doomed!--it will make a dark and profound statement about conservation and the environment.
Earth Hour has some suggestions on keeping the earth green and stuff:
Simple things like turning off appliances while not in use and switching your light globes to energy efficient bulbs, will all help us reach our goal of reducing our annual emissions by 5%. Even something as simple as turning out lights when you’re not in a room and switching to cleaner sources of electricity like "green power", make a big difference.
We concur. SFist, however, cannot promote the use of energy-saving bulbs; the light they give off is atrocious. But if soft and forgiving light is not an issue with you, you might consider switching to them.
We will be shutting our electricity down for an hour tomorrow starting at 8 p.m. and hope you join us.
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Some energy-saving bulbs look really nice. Unfortunately, a lot of them suck-- especially the crappy ones that are included with the cheap-ass bathroom light you bought, or installed by your cheap-ass electrician. And of course, the crappy ones don't say "these suck!" on the box.
We even got some energy-saving floodlights to scare off the homeless dudes from pooping in our driveway.
I hate these silly, petty gestures that make people think they're really helping the environment, when what would really help the most is for them to get their fat asses out of their cars and walk/bike/use public transit. But no one wants to say that, we want easy answers that are absolutely without pain. We want to turn our lights off for an hour to save the earth. BLEH.
But meh, I'll turn the lights off, and bitch cynically whilst doing so.
I might turn off my lights, but I'll probably still watch TV or read SFist.
I agree with bluecanary: complete waste of a gesture.
And while I've wanted to switch to the little fluorescent bulbs on efficiency grounds, I'm very troubled by the fact that *no one* seems to recognize the harmful mercury content in them. In my mind, mercury in the environment is a much worse threat than having my lights on for an extra hour.
Why don't these "turn your lights off" organizations seem to have any interest in making CFLs actually less harmful to the environment? Or at least highlighting places that recycle them responsibly?
Simple Earth-saving arithmetic:
Energy saved by turning off 60W light for 1 hour: .216 megajoules
Energy saved by not burning a gallon of gasoline: 131 megajoules
Enjoy your darkness.
but i look cute in a car.
Thanks for the heads-up! It's not too late to set up an 8pm Saturday night booty call.
If Peskin's "turn the lights off" thing becomes law, downtown will be really spooky.
I've been in some Asian cities (Bangkok is the first one that comes to mind) where seeing skyscrapers with their lights completely 100% off in the middle of the night can be utterly eerie.
Hopefully there will be some kind of balance figured out in this.
I am going to take Caltrain and the Highway 17 express to Santa Cruz tomorrow. I think I will leave my lights on when I get back home after multiple hours on transit, thank you very much.
Most people recognize that the amount of mercury in a fluorescent is miniscule.
You expect me to miss Antiques Roadshow on a Saturday night???!!! Bullshit!
What happened to Lights On for Safety? You know when you leave your porch lights on so burglars know your home, etc. I'm so confused.
I don't get the anti-event arguments at all so far. Since when are people not doing other, practically better things for the environment? You don't know them all, so don't make spurious judgements. And if many of these people *are* apathetic and/or hypocritical, how does that make their participation in an awareness-building exercise a bad thing? Does complicity always equal complacency? Is this supposed to be a zero-sum game, where there's only one good cause, or one good method?
I meant to mention in there somewhere, "the perfect is the enemy of the good" - y'know that one?
I agree up to a point. That point is best represented by Minnesota Congress woman Bachman.
"Bachmann called any human connection to global warming "voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax."
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/house/17002506.html
Yes.
I will turn off my lights, and set fire to a Duraflame log!
Did you know incandescent bulbs over 40W are on the way out in California? Get yours before 2009! I've never used anything over 40 personally, but I refuse to succumb to the green, slow-lighting glow of CFLs!
I have a three lamps that CFLs don't fit (the lampshades are made to fit over a standard shape/length bulb). Also, CFLs don't fit the light in my stairwell, because the base is too wide (I've tried a bunch). CFLs also don't make sense for the constantly on/off lights in my bathroom; nor for places safety requires rapid on light, such as my two stairwells.
Furthermore, the light that CFLs put out is not nearly the aesthetic quality of incandescent.
I would rather live in a dim incandescent house than a bright CFL house.
And yes, I will be turning my lights off for an hour tonight. It's a great excuse to show off my candle collection to the neighbors. :-)
@infokiosk, my head just exploded. that is horrible news. i'll be going to ace this weekend to stockpile.
You guys, I don't get why you think CFLs put off bad light. If you use *fixtures* to cover the bulbs and choose bulbs that output fewer kelvins, you honestly cannot tell the difference -- except they do take a couple of seconds to fully illuminate when first turned on.
From the Energy Star web site: "The majority of CFLs available in the market offer soft or warm white light (2700K–3000K), which is comparable to an incandescent bulb. This color range works well in most residential settings and enhances warmer colors (red, yellow, orange) found in your home." Read more.
Also, CFL bulbs now come in all shapes and sizes. You just have to look for them.
There is about 4-5 mg of mercury in a CFL -- the size of a pin-prick, the clean-up of which doesn't pose an unreasonable hazard if the bulb breaks.
Disposal is definitely an issue, but government will have to step up soon.
A complete and total waste of time to make do gooders feel good about themselves.
Guys, a lot of local hardware stores already accept fluorescent lights for recycling free of charge, along with batteries, cell phones, etc., so quit griping.
Also, there's a better selection of CFLs, and you aren't stuck with bile-green lights. Heck, they make twisty CFLs color balanced at 5000K for photography these days.
The only thing I haven't found yet are higher-wattage (150W equivalent) dimmable CFLs.
If they can manufacture a 6500K CFL that turns on instantly without a ballast, I'll be all over it. Until then, I'll stick to incandescent. (Sorry Mother Earth!) I'll have my lights off tonight all night, but I'm right behind you in line at the hardware store, Brock!
Infokiosk,
They already make 6500K CFLs; go ahead and Google "6500k cfl." They're not even specialty items; GE makes them for lil' ol' consumers like us.
Today's bulbs are pretty darned close to instant on; if you haven't tried CFLs in a couple of years, please try them again. Yes, several years ago your complaints would have been valid, but CFL performance and variety have grown quite a bit.
Also, CFLs have self-contained electronic ballasts.
Something besides CFLs you can do is install dimmer switches.
Dimming incandescent bulbs won't get you as much savings as a CFL, but dimmers save energy and can eliminate harsh, unflattering lighting.
Yeah, I got dimmers on almost all non-CFL switches. I rarely need the lights' full output, so I keep these lights on lower, except for that rare occasions I need the full wattage.
Can everyone also hold their breath for one hour to reduce their carbon footprint and CO2 emissions? Thanks.
Sincerely,
"The Planet"
What a bunch of cynical snarks you all are. Of course this is a symbolic gesture. The Bay Bridge lights all together use less power than a microwave oven, but who cares? The whole point is to provoke a dialog:
Cheesehead A: "Yo, f***, all the f***in' lights are off on the f***ing bridge!"
Cheesehead B: "Wassup with that? F***!"
Thus is the progress of eco-consciousness.
To quote George Carlin: "Save the planet??? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet?" Pure, human, self-centered, arrogance.
I went for a long walk for most of that time, it was nice when I stopped to get a smoothie at lettüs cafe on steiner st. and they had a beautiful candlelit atmosphere that was just super.
Glad to see local business participating as well.
Rumor has it they are opening more locations, a killer spot for yumminess.
I work in the renewable energy industry so I really care about energy conservation, but everyone simultaneously turning off their lights is a really terrible idea - it solves nothing and can really mess up the power grid. we'll all be a lot better off if we take actions that actually help the environment rather than doing something meaningless and potentially destructive.