Earth Hour boomerangs back to Sydney

NSW Premier Morris Iemma, normally botox-expressioned, is suddenly sounding like a global warming alarmist by taking it to the sceptics of symbolism, and the denier of dangerous AGW.

The NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, accused critics of Earth Hour of peddling "utter rubbish" at the launch of the event at Circular Quay this morning.

"The critics and sceptics need to get on board," Mr Iemma told an audience of business supporters of Earth Hour this morning.

"It's utter rubbish to say that symbolism can't lead to change. Yes it's about symbolism but it's a very powerful one - it's about saving the planet."

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Some of the world's largest cities would take part in the energy-reducing initiative this year and its adoption worldwide was a vital step in creating "real practical change", Mr Iemma said today.

While cynics may think Earth Hour symbolises a stick — to beat them with — it really is a boomerang.

"What started a year ago in Sydney has become a global movement as more and more cities around the globe join the battle against climate change, and it is a battle in which every one of us can make a difference," Mr Iemma said.

"[When] 2.1 million Sydneysiders just on a year ago switched off the lights, the critics and the sceptics said that it was largely a symbolic gesture.

"I don't agree with that. What the critics and the sceptics fail to understand is that symbolism can be very powerful when it comes to change.

"That's what Earth Hour is about: real practical change."

WWF-Australia, which is organising Earth Hour with the support of Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald, said that three-quarters of the top 100 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange had agreed to take part.

The WWF said that all of the state's major property companies will join in, as well as 70 per cent of the state's one-, two- and three-hat restaurants, the top five banks and 85 per cent of the state's main hotels. The 50 largest local councils in NSW will also take part.

On the Facebook social networking website, 657,658 people have signed up for more than 150 separate Earth Hour events, while, on the Earth Hour website more than 80,000 people had signalled their willingness to take part, with the figures expected to spike as March 29 draws nearer.

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Cities taking part in this year's Earth Hour include Atlanta, San Francisco and Chicago in the United States, Denmark's four largest cities, London, Dublin, Tel Aviv, Bangkok and Christchurch.

Most Australian capital cities are participating, as well as Newcastle in NSW.

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Solomon needs his temple foundations examined

David Solomon needs to take great care with his statistical work, if he does not want to be tarred with the same 'Chicago school of economics' oily brush that brought us the Iran-Contra affair, the invasion of Iraq, and Paul Wolfowitz.

He doesn't take care, and so his latest work is gleefully used by Andrew Bolt to prove that activities directed towards 'global-cooling' are a waste of time. What results is an insight into the workings of noble-lie theory.

clipped from anonymouse.org Earth Hour made not even a minute difference 16 Comments | 0 Trackbacks | Permalink | Andrew Bolt Blog By Andrew Bolt, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 06:34am Sydney’s Earth Hour - in which global warming cultists turned off their lights to symbolise what green policies would mean to us - was claimed to have saved enough carbon emissions to offset, er, just four return flights to London. David Solomon of Chicago University’s Graduate School of Business checks the figures and works out that stunt was even more useless than that: ‘Earth Hour’ shows a decline of only 2.10%, statistically indistinguishable from zero… In terms of reducing electricity consumption, ‘Earth Hour’ was, statistically speaking, a failure.

Solomon's caveats in the conclusions of his work tell us the real story of not comparing apples to oranges:

It is nevertheless possible that ‘Earth Hour’ may have had a significant effect in a more localized area than New South Wales. The Energy Australia estimates were based on Sydney CBD only, and so may not be directly comparable.

Keep in mind that the majority of the 57% of sydneysiders who tuned-in and 'switched-off' would have necessarily been in the suburbs, because the CBD doesn't support 2.2 million people, except on NYE, and it certainly didn't that night.

Taking the point estimate of the EarthHour Dummy variable in the full specification after controlling for EarthDay fixed effects, the estimated impact of half of Sydney apparently sitting in darkness using no appliances was to reduce statewide electricity use by around 2.1%.

Here's Solomon's conclusion:

This is a useful, albeit rough, example of the potential economic cost of some currently debated policies that seek to reduce Australian greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by the year 2050.

All it tells us is that a 10.1% drop in electricity usage observed within the Sydney CBD and not the suburbs, results in a 2.1% drop in electricity being consumed in the state of New South Wales.

Is that useful? Solomon's right about it being rough, though.

Italics and bolding mine.
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Was Earth Hour a candle in the wind?

Sydney's Earth Hour was an unconditional success in raising awareness about what we can do to fight global warming, with well over fifty percent of the population participating : :::[SMH]

MORE than half of Sydneysiders - as many as 2.2 million - switched off their lights to celebrate Earth Hour on Saturday night, a poll has found.

No one saw this avalanche of support coming - only 65,000 households had pledged to support the event.

However, a few have raised valid questions about the merits of the exercise in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, despite that this was always an ancillary objective. The most obvious one is that the emissions that were generated by the vehicle traffic that came to see Sydney dowsed, and to picnic along the foreshore bathed in flickering shadows, would have detracted from the total emissions reductions.

Another interesting point was raised by Sylvie Else, a contributor to Jennifer Marohasy's politics and environment blog, who suggests that those that turned to candles (I am guilty as charged) were generating more CO₂ than they would have otherwise. She bases her assumptions on the guess that Energy Australia uses gas to supplement coal during peak hour usage: :::[Jennifer Marohasy: Earth Hour and candles: A note from Sylvie]

Leaving aside whether CO₂ emissions are really a problem, if these people thought they were reducing CO₂ emissions by their actions, then I rather think they were deluding themselves. Earth Hour was held during a time of peak electrical load, so any electricity generation displaced would be peak load, probably running on natural gas. Such generation produces about 500 grams of CO₂ for every kilowatt-hour.

So turning a 100 watt light bulb off for an hour saves 50 grams of CO₂, or 13 grams of carbon. A candle is mostly carbon by weight, and candle wax is only moderately less dense than water at room temperature. This means that burning just 5 cm of a typical 2 cm diameter candle will produce more CO₂ than running the 100 watt light bulb for an hour. If the light that was turned off is fluorescent, then even less candle can be burned if there's to be a net reduction in CO₂.

She is theoretically right - wax is a hydrocarbon chain - when you burn it, carbon dioxide is formed. So I undertook further research and posted back to her:

Sylvia,

It's not as clear cut as you would imagine; The greenhouse friendliness of your candles depends on what wax they are made of.

Paraffin wax is derived from crude oil, and as we know that is carbon that has long ago been taken out the atmosphere and sequestered deep underground by nature. It also does not burn very cleanly, pumping soot particles into the air and causing discomfort for asthmatics.

However candles made from wax derived from beeswax or bayberry wax and other renewable sources are environmentally friendlier. As are candle wax made from other plant oils, such as soya oil, by a process called hydrogenation. Because the carbon in these oils was originally in the atmosphere before being taken up by the plant from which the oil is made, the effect on the environment is small.

But 'candle-miles' also need to be taken into account.

If everyone used soya oil candles as a light source instead of electricity, this would cut the need to burn fossil fuels to generate the electricity, therefore reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere from fossil-fuelled power stations. But if the environmental impact of producing and transporting the candles is taken into account, then electricity (especially if it is generated from renewable sources) is a more environmentally friendly option.

If you want to act more effectively and not just be symbolic, source locally produced candles derived from renewable wax such as beeswax.


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