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Mar
29
Google Goes Black For Green
Filed Under climate change, conservation, Earth Hour, Google | 3 Comments
Google has turned its background black as part of tonight’s Earth Hour conservation awareness event.
Writes Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins on Google’s Earth Hour black background:
While I’ve been highly critical of a lot of green initiatives as ultimately wasteful and pointless from time to time, this is one of those feel good moves by Google that might actually have an impact. So much of what passes for GreenTech these days is simply creative tax sheltering or innovative ways to institute redistribution of wealth (or in some cases, just out-and-out fraud that plays on people’s desires to better the earth). Urging folks to simply turn out the lights in an effort to voluntarily brown out for a bit is certainly a move that will raise awareness about energy efficiency.
Mar
29
Don’t Forget Earth Hour Tonight
Filed Under conservation, Earth Hour, environment | 2 Comments
I always try to do my part for the environment — we try to recycle at home so as not to fill up the landfills with things that can be reused and try to conserve energy as much as possible so that we don’t needlessly send money to NIPSCO — it’s part of the command to be good stewards of the earth.
If you’re looking for an easy way to remind yourself to cutback on wasteful energy usage, remember to turn off some lights tonight at 8 p.m. as a part of the World Wild Life Fund’s Earth Hour project.
Protecting the earth through common sense stewardship and waste prevention efforts is something we can all do.
Sometimes the ways of conserving are simple — but not always realized — as seen in local blogger Aaron’s On Home Comfort site. A tweak here or there can make all the difference in wasting resources or getting the full benefit of your utility payments. When we built our house, we paid a little extra for more insulation and oriented our house to take advantage of daylight sun so we wouldn’t need to use artificial lights during the day.
Earth Hour is a public relations device designed to get people to think about energy conservation.
Here’s a brief explanation of Earth Hour from its organizers:
We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.
I’m not going to turn off all of the lights at home, however. I’m doing the Michigan Avenue approach and just cutting back a little more than usual. Since Earth Hour is set for 8 p.m. local time, I’ll probably switch of most of the lights and just use the lowest level on a three way lamp.
Earth Hour has been heavily promoted around the Chicago area and Chicago is one of the World Wild Life Fund’s Earth Hour flagship cities. I’ve seen billboards on the Tri-State (I-294) promoting Earth Hour, as well as placards on the tops of taxi cabs.
As World Wildlife Fund’s flagship city for the United States, Chicago, a leader in environmental initiatives, is encouraging its residents across the region to make the pledge to help fight global warming by voluntarily turning off their lights for 60 minutes. Signature skyscrapers, key landmarks, theater marquees and shops on the Magnificent Mile will voluntarily turn off their lights.
ComEd, the northern Illinois power utility, is a major sponsor of Earth Hour.
While we can argue about the politics of global warming — some in the global warming community are using it to make money selling carbon credits (indulgences), to legitimize moving heavy industries from places with environmental regulation to third world nations with little or no environmental standards such as heavily polluted China, and for political maneuvering against the United States and capitalism — it does make sense to be wise and cut back when we can while rejecting the anti-western and anti-capitalist political aspects of the environmental movement.
Writes Mark Sanford on conservative conservationists:
Make no mistake, the issue of environmental conservation sits squarely on the battle line between government and liberty. From light bulbs to automobiles, government will gladly expand its regulatory reach even if the result is a hamstrung economy and curtailed individual freedoms. Yet conservatives have remained largely absent from this debate, and by pulling back from the environmental battle they have conceded the high ground to those on the far left.
I believe conservatives have a window of opportunity, but that window is closing fast.
First, conservatives must reframe the environmental discussion by replacing the political left’s scare tactics with conservative principles such as responsibility and stewardship. Stewardship — the idea that we need to take care of what we’ve been given — simply makes sense. It makes dollars as well, for the simple reason that our economy is founded on natural resources, from tourism and manufacturing to real estate and agriculture. …
Second, conservatives must reclaim lost ground from far-left interest groups by showing how environmental conservation is as much about expanding economic opportunity as it is about saving whales or replanting rain forests. When corporations such as BP and Shell America pursue alternative energy sources, they not only cut carbon emissions but help cut our petroleum dependency on OPEC nations. …
Third, conservatives must respond to climate change with innovation, not regulation. This means encouraging private research and implementation of more eco-friendly construction, more energy-efficient workplaces and more sustainable ways of going about life — all of which cuts costs and protects God’s creation. It means looking past the question of whether your car’s exhaust melts polar ice caps and instead treating our environment as an investment our future depends on.
The key is to always look for ways of balancing the costs and benefits for the best results without resorting to intrusive government regulations that end up doing more harm than good.
