Earth Hour - March 29th (this Saturday)

[mattm]

Rant that may not make sense and has no proof of anything:

Here's my take. I think global warming is real, kinda dumb not to I think but I don't think that is what we should be focusing on. I think Al Gore needs to modify his direction ever so slightly. See, global warming is now a conspiracy and as such it is easy to shoot down. Since the only evidence we have of past patterns is crazy old air stuck in ice or some other thing then it's easy to just move charts around and to say things may or may not have been this way and that.

Who gives two poops.

What we can see on a daily basis:

-Breathing problems are increasing due to smog

-Old people are dropping way faster than they used to

-Garbage dumps are getting bigger and bigger (I don't want to live in one)

-Animals are going extinct nicely

-Cancer is going up and up and up

Lots of other fun stuff is happening. Now, lets say we battle those things. We think about respiratory problems due to smog and clean up some air then we think of better ways to store our garbage or maybe reuse it, etc, etc.

Now, the solutions to a few of the issues I mentioned happened to coincide with the solutions for global warming. Though I will not provide facts here, I have read lots in newspapers and such about the smog problems and so have lots of other people, not only that, we can just go outside in the summer and see how hard it is to breathe ourselves then imagine having asthma.

What if we fight these things instead of Global Warming? Meaning the words Global Warming may now have been tarnished but man, there's so much crazy stupid bad shit going on (hell, half of what we buy and use is made by slave labour in other countries far away so we don't have to acknowledge it).

I say lets fight pollution, I'd like to see someone show me facts that there's no pollution.

Rant that may not have made sense is now over.

[phishtaper]

Now, the solutions to a few of the issues I mentioned happened to coincide with the solutions for global warming.

i think this is a very important point. and the more someone can make a lot of money off it, the more it is likely to happen.

good "rant" by the way

[Freak By Night]

I'm with you Matt. I've been ranting about this for a couple of years now. Air pollution is the more immediate threat - if we take care of air pollution, global warming will take care of itself.

[mattm]

yupper and I think that if we seriously try to fight the air pollution we will inevitably do battle against other pollutions such as those dumped into the water or the garbage dump.

[Birdy]

I don't get it. I posted information linking to scietific articles. Articles detailing how scietists with findings contradictory to the man made global warming myth are supressed. How the IPCC misrepresented many of the scientists who contributed to it, and slapped their signatures on to great protest. I linked to facts. I posted a movie because it details a great many of these issues, and as most people are too lazy to read anymore, and the television ONLY covers one side of the debate, that it is a good way for people to assess some of the other information. The movie is full of scientists discussing their findings (unlike An Inconvenient Truth) which should act as a springboard for further in depth research. I even posted a pro man made global warming link where you can see CLEARLY on the graph that CO2 levels lag behind temperatures. Did you even read what I wrote? Did you read the links? Did you watch the movie? Just because tv tells you it is a scientific consensus doesn't make it so. In fact it is a blatant lie. If they are lieing to you about a false consensus, how can you trust the rest of their message?

This isn't an ego thing, this is a danger, tyranny ahead signal. Making you put lights filled with mercury in your home is only the beginning.

Dude, you're telling a bunch of hippies there's no such thing as global warming. It's a losing battle.

[FOWL]

I'm not here to "win" just get people to assess things logically and open their minds.

And Matt I agree with you fully (aside from pollution causing global warming of course) but many of my goals coincide with that of global warming people, but so long as the focus is on carbon dioxide and not smog, I just can't go along with it. (things like demonising meat eating due to methane is insane in my opinion. Talking about clearcutting the Amazon for Mcdonalds beef is relevant though.)

[Hal Johnson]

Ok, so I dont get it. Should I be "for" or "against" global warming?

[bokonon]

You know what I think is ridiculous? All the posters and t-shirts and billboards created to promote earth hour probably caused more pollution than the paltry amount conserved by turning off the lights for an hour. All Earth Hour achieved was green marketing. It was completely counter-productive.

[phishtaper]

It was completely counter-productive.

you are thinking and talking about it, riiiiiiiiiiiiight?

[Schwa.]

I haven't seen one piece of Earth Hour parafenalia, have you? Far as i know it was promoted thru radio, internet, tv, schools and already existing print press....i will stand corrected if you can prove me wrong.

[phorbesie]

i didn't see any either. what advertising are you referring to specifically bokonon? did you really see billboards?

[d_rawk]

All Earth Hour achieved was green marketing. It was completely counter-productive.

I'm not sure that green marketing is counter-productive at all. Not being argumentative, I'm being sincere. It seems to me that a few people shutting off their lights for one hour isn't going to do all that much, but that the planting of the idea of why it is important to take such actions is the far more effective and important point of it all. Green marketing, heck yeah. If it wasn't effective marketing, it was (more or less) pointless.

(BTW - I didn't see any t-shirts or billboards or other paraphernalia either, but maybe it is just Ottawa that was spared such things)

[bouche]

I think this is a cool movement...I also think that most people aren't considering the fact that the sun is getting hotter which is causing the ice caps to melt...carbon emissions causes humans to be unhealthy and develop cancer etc. The sun causes extra heat melting ice caps

how high are you? the sun doesn't get hotter that fast dude. we are on a very miniscule timescale compared to the suns increasing temp.

My theory is better. The more solar power that is used' date=' the more energy is demanded from the sun and thus drawn. This means that we are pulling more energy from the sun to energize solar panels. With that, our planet will heat up.

eat that theory and come back to me in 20 years when they can prove it.

[/quote']

Read up a little and learn...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

don't believe everything you read

[bokonon]

The marketing shit was all on a black background with a big blue "60"and some small white writing at the bottom. I saw t-shirts, flyers and billboards. And I live in a small town of eleven thousand.

[Schwa.]

I saw Earth Hour as more of an action geared toward awareness, if not for us as adults (using that term very loosely) then for school children who were given an action to attach to the cause. This makes them aware of global warming at a very young age, far younger than any of us here. If this one small action can lead to our younger generations making green activities part of everyday life rather than an option that we do or don't choose to partake in, the Earth will be a better place for it.

..and boko, its too bad someone felt the need to produce all of these items. these are the individuals that need the awareness beat into them the most. for what its worth, i think the billboards, t shirts and posters were unique to your neck of the woods and there were none of these in all of KW to my knowledge.

[bokonon]

That's a very old argument and i don't buy it. Awareness can be achieved through means other than paraphernalia.

[phorbesie]

i miss monorail cat

[bokonon]

i miss monorail cat

Yeah, me too.

[Schwa.]

That's a very old argument and i don't buy it. Awareness can be achieved through means other than paraphernalia.

i don't know what your talking about here. i mentioned several paraphernalia free methods about 2 or 3 posts ago.

[bokonon]

That's a very old argument and i don't buy it. Awareness can be achieved through means other than paraphernalia.

i don't know what your talking about here. i mentioned several paraphernalia free methods about 2 or 3 posts ago.

Exactly. My point is that Earth Hour paraphernalia is counter-productive.

[Jaimoe]

That's a very old argument and i don't buy it. Awareness can be achieved through means other than paraphernalia.

Name some then.

Word of mouth passed on from our elders? Our elders got us in this mess in the first place.

[allison]

I want to say many,many bad words.

The likelihood of an Earth Hour billboard is almost nil....billboards are booked so fucking far in advance it's insane.If bokonon saw one is would have had to be a private citizen using the logo(which was available to create your own posters,labels etc) on a board they owned.

Almost all of the promotion of Earth Hour that WASN'T online was created by municpalities/government institutions in the form of print advertisements..and it's not like the publications were increased in length to accomodate them.

Big f'ing deal...it's amazing but some people aren't online..how are you getting the message to them?

World Wildlife Federation Canada has very strict policies about marketing materials.They didn't create mass earth hour products.At all.Perhaps private enterprises did.

You can market without creating a tangible product but you sure as hell can't do anything without using energy.Is that what the quibble is about?

Investigate statistics..yes.Question motives...yes.But shit on something because it's a baby step instead of a complete radical revolution? Ohhh aren't we all so cynical and smart.

This argument is just a version of the short hair/longhair/dread hierarchy.

more bad words.

The before and after pictures are kind of cool.

[phorbesie]

bring back monorail cat!

[Schwa.]

Monorail Cat. Back by popular demand yo!

[dancingbear]

I'm not here to "win" just get people to assess things logically and open their minds.

can one be logical, have an open mind and believe in global warming?