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STUDENTS TOLD

An email sent this week to all University of Sydney students:

Between 8pm and 9pm, Saturday 29 March, the University of Sydney will be switching off its lights in support of Earth Hour.

This symbolic act, which began in 2007 as a local Sydney initiative to raise awareness about the need for action on climate change, has been embraced by communities around the world making Earth Hour 2008 a global event.

This must seem so old to North Koreans.

The University of Sydney is proud to participate as part of our commitment to sustainability that is demonstrated through our research, course offerings and sustainable campus projects. For more information on what we are doing about sustainability, please visit our Earth Hour website.

Or do less damage by chartering a jet somewhere.

Campus Infrastructure Services will be coordinating the event and switching off as many non-essential lights as possible, while ensuring that safety and security on our campuses is maintained. There will be some street and path closures to allow as many lights as possible to be switched off.

Safe university you’re running there; needs a partial lockdown to survive sixty minutes of Gore worship.

To ensure that Earth Hour at the University is truly successful, it is important that all staff and students support the initiative by switching off their lights, air conditioning, computers and non essential equipment. This is already a daily habit for many staff and students ...

Really? They turn things off every day?

Thank you for your cooperation.

Gavin Brown
Vice-Chancellor & Principal

You’re welcome.

(Via subversive University of Sydney student “N”)

UPDATE. In related caged mammal news:

The Calgary Zoo will turn off all non-essential lights for the hour ...

Kevin Strange, senior adviser for conservation outreach at the Calgary Zoo, said turning off your lights for 60 minutes may seem like a small gesture, but the event is about making a statement and a long-term commitment.

"It’s about showing you care,” said Strange. “The idea is to make a statement."

This statement is more compelling, from the same Calgary Herald page:

image

Posted by Tim B. on 03/19/2008 at 02:39 PM
  1. Yes, we are far, far behind the NorKors--they turned everything off more than 50 years ago.

    Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2008 03 19 at 02:51 PM • permalink

  2. As has been noted many times before, symbols are for the symbol-minded.

    Meanwhile, here in the St. Louis area, every six months or so Earth blesses us with an event that leaves hundreds of thousands without power for up to a week at a time.  Metaphysically speaking, if Earth blesses us again here next week with one of her tantrums and deprives me of any chance to participate in Earth Hour would that constitute existential proof that free will is an illusion?  Would that make Gaia a Calvinist, thereby thwarting any reason for us puny humans to even try to save her?

    Posted by charles austin on 2008 03 19 at 02:53 PM • permalink

  3. Holding this “event” at a university between 8 and 9 on a Saturday evening is an empty gesture.  Unless colleges down under are radically different from up here, that’s prime party time.  Most of the students will be off somewhere chugging beer, dancing, and looking to engage intimately with other people.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 19 at 03:00 PM • permalink

  4. Once they turn off the big-brother cams, all hell breaks loose.

    Posted by mojo on 2008 03 19 at 03:21 PM • permalink

  5. The same symbolic gestures are to be applied within the Commonwealth public service. All “non-essential” lights and appliances are to be switched off. On a Saturday night.

    Posted by CB on 2008 03 19 at 03:29 PM • permalink

  6. Sydney University is proud?

    I have noticed that leftists ridicule things like pride in Australia’s sports achievements (You didn’t win the race!) and patriotism (How can you be proud about a country whose conduct you have minimal influence in?)

    But when we are talking about empty gesture, Earth Hour by a small committee in the University of Sydney, well you can all be proud of it.

    Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 03 19 at 03:31 PM • permalink

  7. I absolutely agree with participating in this noble act.  And allowing it to represent our sole collective effort to remedy global warming.

    Posted by wronwright on 2008 03 19 at 03:47 PM • permalink

  8. Those NorKs, they’re so progressive.

    Posted by aaron_ on 2008 03 19 at 04:12 PM • permalink

  9. From Take Back the Night to Make Black the Night. Oy!

    One advantage: The campus blackout will make it easier to observe, through chinks in the blinds, the firm young bodies of eager female students exploring alternate sexualities with the aid of candles, hopefully not just to illuminate their dorms.

    Posted by Phranger on 2008 03 19 at 05:11 PM • permalink

  10. Some US universities have been known to break into riots and car-b-ques when the lights go out.  Especially if there’s been a hotly contested game of some kind, and lots of beer.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 03 19 at 05:13 PM • permalink

  11. Staff are told, too.

    The first para on the first page was so vomitous I couldn’t read any further....

    So I flicked through. On page 8 I saw “Climate Change - The Facts”. Wot? I read.

    Straight. In. The. Bin.

    If there’s anything worthwhile in there please let me know.

    Or not.

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 19 at 05:25 PM • permalink

  12. ’computers and non essential equipment.’

    Nice touch that, in a university, on a Saturday.

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 03 19 at 05:30 PM • permalink

  13. Saturday.  Yeah, right, turn off the lights when no students will be there.  Symbolic as all hell, isn’t it?

    How about the students take a week off from classes?  I used to do that at UCSD - it was usually symbolic of good surf conditions.

    Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2008 03 19 at 05:31 PM • permalink

  14. Campus Infrastructure Services will be coordinating the event and switching off as many non-essential lights as possible, while ensuring that safety and security on our campuses is maintained.

    Umm… why aren’t all nonessential lights turned off every day, anyway? Could it be, because the tards give a squat about the utilities bill that tax payers have no choice on paying in regular, non extremist rhetoric, times?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2008 03 19 at 05:37 PM • permalink

  15. Sydney University is home to one of the biggest antisemites I’ve come across in this country, Professor Evan Jones.

    Someone should remind him to turn off the scale model Auschwitz crematoria I’m sure he’s working on.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2008 03 19 at 05:40 PM • permalink

  16. Last night the ABC’s 7.30 report pitched in to support the return to compulsory student unionism. Start training those political babes early, churn out more “activists”. Colour me cynical regarding the services provided - that line would be more credible if the activist bullshit was minimal or nil. I see the benefit for the leftist/moonbat parties in harvesting youthful feelings.
    Successful students have more important things to do than join agitation collectives.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2008 03 19 at 05:41 PM • permalink

  17. 8.20am, AEST, 150,000 of the 304 million people with internet connections have joined earth hour. Funnily, the only way you can join earth hour is to log onto the your computer and talk to earth hour’s computer, which runs 24/7. No phone number, no address to which to ride your bike to pop your enrolment under the door. You are expected to be online and drowning polar bears to participate.

    It’s farcical. And it’s an appalling indictment of higher education in Australia that the University of Sydney thinks it is a good thing.

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 03 19 at 05:45 PM • permalink

  18. "This symbolic act”

    Very appropriate, seeing as how the AGW true believers are totally in the dark.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 19 at 06:03 PM • permalink

  19. To really appease the Sun God, maybe during Earth Hour we could go back to sacrificing virgins?

    Male and female, of course.

    Posted by ann j on 2008 03 19 at 06:09 PM • permalink

  20. #16 Blogstrop

    Outside the main campus of the UTS are posters demanding that study be made free, and the reintroduction of Compulsory Student Unionism.

    It is unjust that they should pay for Uni, but only fair that they should pay for the union.

    Actually, I suspect their next pitch will for the Government to pay these Union fees for the students, except the rich ones.

    Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 03 19 at 06:10 PM • permalink

  21. I hate universities.

    And I’m at one.

    Posted by Apple77 on 2008 03 19 at 06:19 PM • permalink

  22. This is just another wanky pseudo-religion, like Transcendental meditation man.  Turn the lights out man and shove an organic pineapple up your arse.  They would rather be organic than orgasmic!

    Posted by Howzat on 2008 03 19 at 06:26 PM • permalink

  23. My employer (Victorian public service) has sent around the email about how ‘we’ will be supporting Earth Hour.  As the building will be vacant at the time, that’s a big sacrifice.  The official email blathers about ‘leadership’.  Why a government agency feels it has the right to talk about leadership when it is caving to pressure from a privately-owned media company is not immediately obvious to me.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2008 03 19 at 06:33 PM • permalink

  24. "To really appease the Sun God, maybe during Earth Hour we could go back to sacrificing virgins?”

    For us Americans, there’s a practical objection to that idea that is summed up in the old joke:

    Q.  Why wasn’t Jesus born in America?

    A.  They couldn’t locate three wise men or a virgin.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 19 at 06:43 PM • permalink

  25. Slightly edited Kevin Strange:

    "turning off your lights for 60 minutes ... is about making a statement and a long-term commitment."

    Well, they do say that lefties have no sense of history; maybe Earth Hour is what constitutes a long-term commitment to them.

    Posted by PW on 2008 03 19 at 06:55 PM • permalink

  26. "It’s about showing you care,” said Strange. “The idea is to make a statement."

    There’s Leftism in a nutshell. A dog-and-pony show of awareness-raising in the hopes that someone else will actually do something. Socio-political masturbation.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2008 03 19 at 06:59 PM • permalink

  27. Why not between 9am and 9pm, Friday 28 March, the University of Sydney switched off its lights in support of Earth 12-Hour.
    Turn off TV and mobile telephones and of course the Interent, in support of Earth 12-Hour.
    Strange Kevin, “It’s Strange about showing you care,”. “The Strange idea is to make a Strange statement.”

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 19 at 07:06 PM • permalink

  28. I would like to request that you all keep the lights on… I’m so tired of winter, we still have snow on the ground up here.  I’m getting a bit impatient - I was hoping for tropical weather to start making it’s way north. 

    Not only is there no tropical weather - but it’s the middle of March and we still have snow on the ground from last December.  I’m thinking a bit of global warmening would feel pretty good about now.  And it would so cut down on my heating oil use.

    Posted by Teresa on 2008 03 19 at 07:06 PM • permalink

  29. We’re all well aware of this, but walk proudly!

    I biked over 1,000 mile last summer.  I walk downtown to the bar and to go out to eat (airfreight imported fish and oysters).  Proud to say, I saved money, conserved fuel, stayed fit, and boosted my food consumption and GHG emissions!  Bring on the warming!

    Posted by aaron_ on 2008 03 19 at 07:13 PM • permalink

  30. Is there any chance, any chance at all, that they could switch off the non essential faculty and administrators?  That would save a whole lot of energy consumption right there.  I’m guessing upwards of 50%.

    Posted by kcom on 2008 03 19 at 07:21 PM • permalink

  31. "the idea is to make a statement.”

    Otay.

    >>at least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxin gas released by various human activities. >> (Duke University study)

    There. I feel so much gaiaer now.

    Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2008 03 19 at 07:36 PM • permalink

  32. Glad to see the Canadian content there, Tim.

    Canada, Australia - the two most ignored countries in the world.

    Let’s keep it that way and support our friends and allies in the Anglosphere: US, NZ, UK, India, andf anyother that wishes to live by the rule of law.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 19 at 07:37 PM • permalink

  33. "turning off your lights for 60 minutes ... is about making a statement and a long-term commitment."

    Like a religious vow: Prostrate oneself before the altar of Gaia, perhaps penetrate, heh? and COMMIT!

    Commit to no energy sources, including food. Commit to no CO2 production, including breathing. Leave the planet to the rest of us. Go get the despoiled virgins that the muslims left behind.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 19 at 07:43 PM • permalink

  34. #28 Quit complaining teresa, we got snow/rain/freezing rain/rain etc. this day and it will snow on Saturday.

    People are actually being prosecuted for using “illegal snow dumps”.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 19 at 07:48 PM • permalink

  35. Watched Seven news Queensland (rather Brisbane) and at the end they had a school promoting earth hour which included;

    A song about Earth hour
    Nagging Parents about it
    Dobbing on Parents and other people.

    That school really makes me think.

    Posted by Old school on 2008 03 19 at 07:55 PM • permalink

  36. "The Calgary Zoo will turn off all non-essential lights for the hour ...”

    Why don’t they let the polar bears run wild for an hour?

    Posted by Mystery Meat on 2008 03 19 at 08:01 PM • permalink

  37. A zookeeper named Mister Strange? Potential.

    Posted by lyle on 2008 03 19 at 08:06 PM • permalink

  38. We are actually told in my faculty at the University of Sydney to keep our computers turned on at all times to allow updates to be downloaded.

    Posted by gdog78 on 2008 03 19 at 08:09 PM • permalink

  39. Why don’t they have Earth Hour during daylight?

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2008 03 19 at 08:10 PM • permalink

  40. Between 8pm and 9pm, Saturday 29 March, the University of Sydney will be switching off its lights in support of Earth Hour.

    Note to Men of No Appearance, panhandling Native Australians and bogans in general: easy pickings, cobbers…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 03 19 at 08:21 PM • permalink

  41. Wow. I’m so much greener than any of these guys—I turn off my lights every night for the entire night. That’s anywhere from six to ten hours, depending on how much sleep I need. Suck my dust, faux greenies!

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2008 03 19 at 08:32 PM • permalink

  42. Heard a rep from this bunch of quambies on the ABC radio this morning complaining that not enough was being done to phase out free bags by 2008.
    I wasn’t even aware that it was legislated to force shops to stop giving out free packaging.
    He suggested charging people for what is currently free, and mentioned how the government could use the money.
    Minor numbers of deaths are being “Iraqi civilian death-ed” out into millions, without a lot of hard figures to back them up.
    No bags by 2008?

    The next cab off the rank was a tool spruiking the introduction of a carbon tax as a good thing as it would be “A new revenue stream for the federal government”. Then he said without pausing for rational thought “That money could be used to offset the extra costs the poor might have to bear from its introduction.”

    Tax and spend, no wonder the government keeps funding these parasites.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 03 19 at 08:35 PM • permalink

  43. #34… well, I didn’t want to whine too much we did have freezing rain going this morning.  OTOH, I figure if we got tropical weather here, you Canadians would get at least some nice moderate temps… we could have the palm trees and y’all would get to see the ground again.  *grin*

    Posted by Teresa on 2008 03 19 at 08:36 PM • permalink

  44. ”..the event is about making a statement and a long-term commitment.”

    That takes care of the statement and commitment angle, but they totally forgot about the consciousness and awareness razing potential. 

    Naughty university,(and it’s my alma mater, too!).

    Posted by AisA on 2008 03 19 at 08:52 PM • permalink

  45. Science does not know

    How many red spots does Jupiter have?
    Nor
    What makes them red? Curiously, no one knows why the Great Red Spot itself is red.

    Yet they know why earth is warming.

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 19 at 08:58 PM • permalink

  46. I can feel some pictures of non-darkened Blairite lairs coming on. . .

    We live next door to some mung beans - they will probably fall out of their tree when they see the light streaming out of my place for that hour.

    Posted by Razor on 2008 03 19 at 09:02 PM • permalink

  47. I really enjoy the spin with this movie.

    http://wip.warnerbros.com/11thhour/

    One of the proud ECO partners from their official 11th Hour site is Aveda, please take note of the website, FREE shipping is included, that’s a lot of carbon footprints.Is Iceland air (the other sponsor)shipping the lipstick?

    http://www.aveda.com/index.tmpl?ngextredir=1

    Come to think of it, how does Earth Hour ship their dodgy T-shirts to consumers?

    Posted by gin&tonic on 2008 03 19 at 09:11 PM • permalink

  48. "Come to think of it, how does Earth Hour ship their dodgy T-shirts to consumers?"

    Pack mules.  100% pack mules.

    Posted by kcom on 2008 03 19 at 09:16 PM • permalink

  49. # 11 kae,

    I was unfortunate enough to click on your link, thinking it couldn’t be that bad. A few lines down the text I read this:

    "As the animals of the
    forest will always remember where
    they were when Bambi’s mother
    was shot, she [the writer’s - if you can call him that - wife] will always recall that
    she was at Singapore Airport when
    Howard conceded victory"

    I swear to God, I’ll never, ever disregard your warnings again!

    Posted by Mikael on 2008 03 19 at 09:56 PM • permalink

  50. Miranda Devine “It is not that conservatives fear the power of the bad ideas pushed by educators. Thinking people eventually figure out the truth for themselves. The problem comes when the bad ideas actually stop children from being taught to read and write - and therefore to think."
    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 19 at 10:23 PM • permalink

  51. They’re doing the same thing at the University of Queensland.

    Support Earth Hour at UQ and at home.

    I urge you to support the Earth Hour initiative on campus and consider supporting this initiative on a personal level.  You can register to be involved on the Earth Hour website at ...

    Normally, if someone send me a piece of sanctimonious twaddle like this they’d get a sharply worded reply demanding that they cut it out, or I’d simply put the sender on my blocked list. But you really can’t do that with the vice chancellor. One just has to bite one’s tongue and hope for better days.

    Posted by SteveGW on 2008 03 19 at 11:38 PM • permalink

  52. #51
    Ahh, you got that steaming email too?

    The University will be turning off non-essential lights in our buildings on Saturday 29 March from 8.00 9.00pm.  The UQ Union and UQ Sport are also supporting this event.

    I ask that you turn off your computer, monitor and associated equipment, and lights in your study/work space before you leave on Friday, 28 March.  Also, you should turn off lights and non essential equipment in other areas such as laboratories, workshops, kitchens, ablutions and hallways. Please be assured that our OH&S guidelines will be observed, and emergency lighting and security systems will operate as normal.

    Yeah. That’s really going to achieve something.
    Not sure what, but something.

    Oh, awareness.

    The email sure got my back up.

    I would have thought that lights in the toilets and ablutions would be an OH&S necessity.

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 19 at 11:46 PM • permalink

  53. "It’s about showing you care,” said Strange. “The idea is to make a statement.”

    It’s a useless and pointless gesture but, damnit, somebody’s gotta do it!!!

    Narcissism on parade.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 20 at 02:14 AM • permalink


  54. Outside the main campus of the UTS are posters demanding that study be made free, and the reintroduction of Compulsory Student Unionism.

    So here’s the scenario:

    You’re a year 12 student whose family arrived, not so long ago, from some war fucked third world country, and whose parents both work full time for a combined income, which after tax, work/travel expenses and the fewer benefits afforded working people, adds up to only marginally more than the dole.  Your parents are also paying to send your youngest two siblings to the local Catholic school in the hope of increasing their chances of learning to read, and lessening their chances of getting stabbed.

    Which is the greater hardship on you and your family:

    (a)Having to pay university fees, sometime in the relatively distant future, when you have completed your degree and are earning more than your parents.

    (b)Having to shell out $500 for student union fees on day one, and every subsequent semester, so a tiny minority of your fellow students can publish a newspaper that sings praise to the despotic regime your family fled from.

    Scenario 2:

    Your father is a right-on, heart on the sleave, lefty lawyer.  Naturally, like most of his ilk, he has a dodgy disabled parking permit, a mistress, and more money than God (marginally less than Malcolm Turnbull), which he has squirreled away in several bottom of the harbour tax schemes.

    Which is more costly to you:

    (a)Paying a contribution to your taxpayer funded education (there are no old ivy clad private universities in Australia).

    (b)Paying $500 a semester to the student union, which is less than your dad spends on hookers every week.

    i.e. for students from low-income families, up front student union fees are a greater burden than delayed university tuition fees.

    Another thing about the campus commissars I find a little unfair is how they believe that students from modest suburban non-government schools should get no tax payer funded assistance, but once a PLC girl gets to UNSW she should be subsidised 100%.

    Posted by monaro on 2008 03 20 at 02:15 AM • permalink

  55. grrr. I’m surrounded by it.

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 20 at 05:31 AM • permalink

  56. After the Incident, ‘Shocked’
    Calgary Zoo Issues a Statement:

    ‘The whole human race, in my view,’
    Says Strange of the Calgary Zoo,
    ‘Committed a sin;
    The verdict was in,
    And penance was long overdue.’

    ‘We built a new theater and stage
    To let eco-activists rage,
    And after they proved
    Man should be removed,
    We opened each predator’s cage.’

    Posted by lyle on 2008 03 20 at 05:43 AM • permalink

  57. Lyle, we can only wish.

    Posted by rabidfox on 2008 03 20 at 10:52 PM • permalink

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