Thanks for trying to introduce some facts and figures into the debate. However it would be more helpful if you
posted figures large enough for me to see clearly
added some explanatory text
and, most importantly, quoted your sources
I notice that one of your figures is from IPCC 1995. This appears strange considering that the 2007 report is available at http://www.ipcc.ch/
Anyway, the sky is reasonable here in Wollongong but better in Picton. I also note that the wind in Goulburn and Moss Vale has moved to the WNW which should bring clearer skies. The WNW is obviously on the leading edge of the front that is on its way but hopefully the sky will be OK until moonrise. So I'm off over the mountain to gather some extraterrestrial photons.
"If you believe that greenhouse gases are a priority, like a lot of us, if you take the issue seriously like I do and John [Howard] does, then you should be supportive of nuclear power," Mr Bush said.
Yep. We can sell you Uranium, but sunlight and wind are free.
Earth hour almost seems to be a total waste of time; The power stations take a long time to power up a generator, and to shut one down
thats what one crikey.com.au reader said but another, who certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about, said it only takes about 10 minutes (at least with gas turbines). so i guess if there was a noticeable reduction in demand they will actually generate a bit less power. but then i bet they will need to generate a bit more to cope with the peak at 9pm when everything goes back on
More likely, it is a rather effective method to secure research grants.
Biggest scientific fraud since the Piltdown Man saga.
thats too cynical for me. scientists, whose inherent purpose and motivation is to find the real explanation behind phenomona have all conspired to find a bogey man to ensure their long term relevance?
versus:
scientists have identified a POTENTIAL issue and some significant vested interests have invested billions, possibly trillions, into creating FUD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt) to ensure their long term relevance.
and then every man and his dog who has an axe to grind or a buck to make has cast their own spin on the issue. who knows what to believe?
personally im more concerned about things like benzene in unleaded petrol fumes and the effect of diesel fumes (25x more carcinogenic than tobacco smoke) we are swimming in the stuff every day.
Did anyone notice any darkening of the skies through a reduction of the skyglow.
Out my way the glow of Canberra about 40km to the west of me seemed a bit dimmer than it usually is, it may also have been caused by my third glass of red also.
Still I did my bit and turned of the lights as I always do being an amateur astonomer.
The only electricity I used was running the fridge,everything else was turned of at the wall
My only light was my battery powered camp light
It is normally dark round here so there was no difference
Ron
well i fired up the V12 Hummer that runs on the blood of liddle biddy cutesy baby seals, at 12 gallons a millimetre economy and we moseyed on up to a hill overlooking our fair city, and once earth hour was over motored roaringly home not sparing the baby seals blood, and fired up the 22 foot long plasma tv to watch the results on the news, and boy did we feel good about ourselves!
well kinda, did go to a lookout, and the CBD was certainly blacked out but yeh the streetlights were still on, surprise surprise, but man we did notice most homes were dark and something weird was going on, there was kind of a hush, ..all over the world,,,, i would liken it to an eclipse of the city, a similar thing, but the vast majority of homes were completely blacked out, dunno if it was all deliberate? and our neighbours all seemed blacked out, maybe they were all turned on by the soft angelic candellight? sooo dunno seems like a success from one view, but the blazing footy lights of norwood oval kind of ruined the only view of the blacked out cbd
one thing that i cant believe it was scheduled during the end of the televising of the crows game
Hi mark3d, yep watched it, but werent any sceptics interviewed, i accidently watched the now old 2006 '6 degrees' one, which i hadnt seen before, altho i knew of it well, recently, that was very good too, yep hard to get out the thousands of years old shrinkin glaciers symptoms, that doesnt fit into the mini warm ages theory does it, how can it if they were equally warm climate swings, how did they survive those periods?
Well we did our Earth Hour Obs night and it was well attended.
The biggest benefit is that I have realized that we can do public observing nights on our town oval.
It just needs 1 or 2 sets of lights switched off (not hard to do) and we can have an observing night that is easily accessible to the public.
Did anyone notice any darkening of the skies through a reduction of the skyglow.Cheers
This was my first one, last year during Earth Night I was overseas, so I was really curious.
Sydney CBD is to my south, but I did not notice much of a difference, was a bit disappointed... Most neighbours seemed oblivious, our house was the only dark one - save for two red headlamps...
These things are always a process and the Media dont always get it right either
"Air News" which is syndicated to dozens of community stations around the country reported on Friday that it was "Tonight" and they did it again this morning (Sunday) reporting that it is going to be on "Tonight" !
Yes I have contacted them and aired my concern.
Anyway, we had a good earth hour Obs night.
We had 3 scopes out and the local high school even bought out their LX-90 for the event (a first !)
Well, at Sydney Observatory we had a bit of an open night last night to coincide and I have to say that from almost the centre of the CBD at least, it was substantially darker -- amounting to about 0.3- 0.4 magnitudes of ZLM. We are pretty open to the North there and in that direction there was a big *visible* participation rate.
But, at the end of the hour, how did the city celebrate? With fireworks over the Opera House!
Yep, we burnt/ blew-up a whole lot of stuff to make -- more carbon dioxide.
Hmmm ...
As somewhat of a sceptic over human inducted global warming myself, it is interesting to see that one of the government's former top advisors on climate change David Evans, has now come out to proclaim his severe doubts over this global warming "religion".
And he attributes any observed change as also being possibly consistent with change (strengthening) in the Earth's magnetic field over the last few decades and its relationship with cosmic rays and cloud formation. Has to be said that branch of science is still in its infancy.
Earth Hour was a good thing though no matter what stance you take on climate change. It can only help raise awareness of the night sky and astronomy. Whether you believe in human induced global warming or not, it is wrong to wilfully waste an energy resource, and worse still to simply use it to illuminate the night sky.
In Launceston it was a non event. I couldn't even convince HRH to turn off the one light she was reading the newspaper by.
The worst polluter, street lighting remained unchanged, the state government's electric authority didn't bother to turn off their lights despite being the most visible source of light pollution in the greater Launceston area.
The transparency here was poor, smoke and some high level cloud (or more smoke) made observing difficult so I packed it in and watched a program called The Planet on SBS. If you're a climate change sceptic that program is worth a look. They presented some cold hard facts and pictorial evidence of the damage we are doing to the planet including statistics on extinction predictions for mammals, fish, birds and reptiles and storm incidence.
Most big companies join in. For example I work for Westpac (don't hate me ) and on Saturday they basically locked up the head office for an hour and turned of all the lights.
Normally 5,000 people work in the building so there is always someone there. In this case because of work safety regulations any remaining workers were gathered in a few rooms for the hour and given a free feed until some lights could be turned back on.
The worst polluter, street lighting remained unchanged, the state government's electric authority didn't bother to turn off their lights despite being the most visible source of light pollution in the greater Launceston area.
I expect you'll find that public safety would have been rated a higher priority and all street lighting would have remained on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ngcles
Earth Hour was a good thing though no matter what stance you take on climate change. It can only help raise awareness of the night sky and astronomy. Whether you believe in human induced global warming or not, it is wrong to wilfully waste an energy resource, and worse still to simply use it to illuminate the night sky.
My worry is when our great grandchildren are taught in history lessons the incredible fact that their predecessors took the wonderful raw material for the production of plastics and other petrol chemicals and burnt it in cars and trucks!
wow in Baia Mare, Maramures, Romania they turned off the streetlights!!!, awesome, geez now i'm jealous thats how it should be done, great to see spaceweather getting behind it!
some great observations and comments here I liked that link Les, food for thought, very interesting - there's only debate about the cause it seems, not that its not happening?
Ian, my missus's elderly parents thought it was compulsory, and that it was the night before as well they turned everything off! and sat in the dark so as not to be arrested? sheeesh
the newspaper depicted earth hour the day before in the paper, with a totally blacked out city with superimposed startrails and then complained about everyone going to hills vantage points, some co-ordination required?
I don't know what everyone is worried about. When the volcano erupts under the Yellowstone national park ( and in geological terms it will very soon) the entire northern hemesphere and a lot of the southern will be locked into an ice age for hundreds of years. So I say enjoy the heat while you can because in the next 10,000,000 years or so things are going to be FUBAR.
I liked that link Les, food for thought, very interesting - there's only debate about the cause it seems, not that its not happening?
they turned everything off! and sat in the dark so as not to be arrested? sheeesh
