"Anti"-Earth hour

[Boozy]

My friends and I (who are buying the house with me) have already decided that we're going to use that money to make our new house solar or get a wind turbine and have that generate our power.

Immensely wise investment. Solar panels will pay for themselves a thousand times over, and add to the resale value of your house (in most areas).

I don't know if you were considering it, but I wouldn't recommend going off-grid. Even if the panels provide enough energy for your needs, most power companies will buy the excess energy fed back through their lines! If you and your friends go on vacation, your solar power will be put to good use in your absence and you'll have a cheque coming when you get back.

[LewisLegion]

I don't know if you were considering it, but I wouldn't recommend going off-grid. Even if the panels provide enough energy for your needs, most power companies will buy the excess energy fed back through their lines! If you and your friends go on vacation, your solar power will be put to good use in your absence and you'll have a cheque coming when you get back.

So I heard We will definately be taking advantage of that, esp if we end up putting both in (which we likely will, once the house is wired on a solar generator its only five grand to slap a turbine in as well to take over on stormy or too-dark days).

I can definately tolerate the power company paying us

[Lace Neil Singer]

It's a bit arrogant to state something like "We humans are going to destroy the planet unless we quit fucking up" when the planet has survived billions of years of ecological disasters, which when compared to two centuries of abuse by us is like comparing a hand grenade to a nuclear bomb.

However, we just might end up destroying the human race if we're not careful. We're not powerful enough to either destroy or save the earth; however, we just might be able to destroy or save ourselves.

[Dreamstalker]

Natural disasters are, well, natural and the ecosystem can, will and has recovered from those.

The problem with ecological abuse by humans is that we dump man-made pollutants into the ecosystem that, because they are man-made, aren't going to go away/degrade anytime soon. So the destruction is accelerating more rapidly than it would otherwise and what's done now can't be undone (at least not easily).

[protege]

While obviously not ideal and he opened himself up to that one, it's not intellectually honest to just sit back smugly and call him a hypocrite without bothering to figure out what all's going into it.

I understand that his place is bigger, and that he uses the place as a business. Still, what the hell is he doing there that requires so much energy? Doesn't he have any efficient appliances, furnaces, or other earth-friendly things? The article makes no mention of that. *That's* why I have a problem with him.

[AFPheonix]

I'm sure he does. Several computers suck quite a bit of power, however, and I suspect the man probably has a server rack in there tucked away as well that probably isn't ever turned off. Not to mention appliances like full sized copiers and other extraneous things that you and I would have in our house.
I'm too lazy to bother to calculate, but it would be interesting to see how much power an average small office or two uses per day and how that compares to his outfit. That might make the the numbers make a bit more sense.
Further, if I recall correctly, this is not a new building and was in the midst of some upgrades at the time all the kerfuffle came out on his energy usage. A bit of insulation, triple paned windows, and other things like that make a massive difference in how much power one house uses. Hell, even older wiring can lose a lot of energy in the form of heat that newer wiring prevents.

[Seshat]

While we're on the topic, for those of you in Australia (even those just renting), there are some interesting/useful government rebates and schemes.


Come the start of July, we're going to be putting ourselves in the queue for free insulation.

[PepperElf]

Heh I picked up a bunch of environmentalist followers on twitter when I ran a post ending in #earthhour #drillbabyburn

Yes, I ran the tags for both "be nice to the earth and save electricity" and "drill for oil!" cos... as i said in the post, i felt both concepts could get along quite nicely.

Kinda like... drill for oil, don't throw away your options on fuel sources, but still try to use less.

not sure if it makes sense... but... as i see it...
i want them to drill for oil and i don't want a high gas/electric bill. so i support drilling for oil ... and i try to keep my own usage down cos it means the bill is smaller