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Last updated on August 5th, 2017 at 05:15 pm
Following the SMH’s triumphant darkening experiment, we now have this:
City skylines filled with burning bright lights will be a thing of the past if Sunrise and the Australian Conservation Foundation have their way.
Lights Off Australia will take place on the first Wednesday of every month.
Companies taking part need to switch off any non-essential lights when they finish work on that day. Residents are asked to go without one light they’d otherwise have on.
Via Paul Bickford, who presents a Sunrise-themed poll. In other illumination news, Mark Steyn reports:
In the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, Sen. Barack Obama was asked what he personally was doing to save the environment, and replied that his family was “working on” changing their light bulbs.
Is this the new version of the old joke? How many senators does it take to “work on” changing a light bulb? One to propose a bipartisan commission. One to threaten to de-fund the light bulbs. One to demand the impeachment of Bush and Cheney for keeping us all in the dark. One to vote to pull out the first of the light bulbs by fall of this year with a view to getting them all pulled out by the end of 2008.
UPDATE. Sir Nicholas Stern is “moving towards” low-energy lightbulbs. Sir Nick sounds kinda low-energy himself.
- This is the point I keep harping on. All of those who say ‘yes, something must be done’ expect others to do it and not themselves.Posted by Nic on 2007 04 30 at 02:17 AM • permalink
- #1 Yes, something must be done.Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 04 30 at 02:27 AM • permalink
- “Residents are asked to go without one light they’d otherwise have on.”
Sod off, swampy.Posted by Crusader-Rabbit on 2007 04 30 at 02:28 AM • permalink
- The amazing thing is that Bazza Obama was obviously not prepared for this question. His answer would have been even more pathetic if he said, one day a month I turn off the lights at work when everyone has left and I turn off one light at home on that day as well.Posted by alien kiwi on 2007 04 30 at 02:30 AM • permalink
- Steyn at his ascerbic best:
“Meanwhile, the leftists don’t accept it because, while they’re fond of “causes,” they dislike those that require meaningful action: Ask Tibetans about how effective half a century of America’s “Free Tibet” campaign has been; or ask Darfuris, assuming you can find one still breathing, how the left’s latest fetishization is going from their perspective:
“On Sunday, April 29, Salt Lake Saves Darfur invites the greater Salt Lake community of compassion to join with us as we honor the fallen and suffering Darfuris in a day of films, discussion and dance with a Sudanese dance troupe.”
Marvelous. I hope as the “Salt Lake Saves Darfur” campaign intensifies in the decades ahead there’ll be enough Darfuris to man the dance troupe.”
Priceless stuff. Steyn is an island of hope jutting from a sea of insanity.
- Well, I’m doing my part.
I’ve replaced all the vibrators in the house with dildos. I’ve cancelled the newspaper and steal the neighbours instead. And I’ve pulled the fridge light out and installed a candle.
Think Global – Act Loco.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 04 30 at 02:47 AM • permalink
- #3,#1 – yes, why doesn’t somebody DO something about it?Posted by anonymous guest on 2007 04 30 at 03:01 AM • permalink
- Sunrise has become Australia’s first greenhouse friendly TV program. Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell presented Sunrise hosts David Koch and Melissa Doyle a certificate under the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Friendly™ initiative.
WTF?
Gov’t supported truthiness?
OMG!
- News just in that Kevni has appointed Keynesian economist Ross Garnaut to head Labor’s ‘Stern Report’ into glowball warmongering.
Ross Garnaut – Ambassador to China 1985-88
Kevni Ruff – Diplomatic posting to China 1985-88Well that explains Ruffni’s lack of ability to understand supply side economics and Garnaut’s appointment.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 04 30 at 03:20 AM • permalink
- Is this the new version of the old joke? How many senators does it take to “work on” changing a light bulb? One to propose a bipartisan commission. One to threaten to de-fund the light bulbs. One to demand the impeachment of Bush and Cheney for keeping us all in the dark. One to vote to pull out the first of the light bulbs by fall of this year with a view to getting them all pulled out by the end of 2008.
Followed, of course, by a veto that renders the whole process moot.
- #12, spot on Jack. Garnaut is an ALP Stooge.Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 04 30 at 03:56 AM • permalink
- Surely one day, there will be a tipping point when everyone tires of all this?
Or will it be resigned acceptance
“yeah – Ok gotta do something about it – yawn – let’s go to the club for dinner luv instead of wasting electricity at home”
So our little carbon footprint is now smaller (must work out one day how this is measured???) , and we get a bloody good steak – especially on Wednesday night for the “buy one steak, get one free” deal
Now with Kevin doing his own Stern Report – it will be no unbearable to listen or watch the news for the next few months
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2007 04 30 at 04:07 AM • permalink
- I can do better than what Sunrise suggests.
I proclaim, henceforth and with Al Gore as my witness, that I shall save copious clouds of CO2 (well, 3 ounces anyway), by turning off the Sunrise show EVERY SINGLE DAY – that’s better than these wimps saying “hey turn off one light once a week” (where’s some sand so I can kick it in their pasty faces?).
I proclaim never to watch Sunrise again, to gain further carbon credits by planting a geranium in my garden, to eschew all Fairfax publications to save the planet and the trees and to only roar off from the lights in my V8 three times a week.
I’m doing my bit for gaia pilgrims, what are you doing…..?
- #26 I’m with you. Sunrise is off the air with me too.
As for Obama, be fair. He might live a Gore-like mansion and replacing the light bulbs might be a problem “to be worked on”. When Al changes his light bulbs factories have to step up production two months in advance, fleets of trucks and drivers have to be organised to ship them out, teams of workers have to be hired and ladders procured. Then there is the mandatory six-hour power switch over as the drain of Gore mansion is removed from the system. Do it too quickly and a power spike will destroy every appliance, TV and computer within a 100 mile radius. Of course, that has to be matched with a six-hour reconnection of Gore Manor to the grid. Remember the 2003 Northeast Blackout? That was Al foolishly turning off the power to see what it was like to live without electricity for a minute.
- #12 #16 #18
The conclusions to the ‘Garneaut Report’ are already
knowndecided—now a suitable report needs to be written, choosing the appropriate data to support the conclusion they want. (Garneaut declared on ABC’s PM tonight that AGW is a big problem and something must be done—he was speaking from Rudd’s Queensland office.)
- #31:
I am not going to be Prime Minister of this country
he should have stopped there.
Posted by benson swears a lot on 2007 04 30 at 06:03 AM • permalink
- … absolutely!Posted by benson swears a lot on 2007 04 30 at 06:05 AM • permalink
- I very much like my Stalag 17 brand klieg lights purchased from Prison Atmosphere Completely Obtained. When I turn them on, my back yard transforms night time to daylight. I really like that sometimes.
But I also believe something should be done. I have no problem whatsoever with someone else doing something to combat this major major problem.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 04 30 at 06:17 AM • permalink
- #36: have you ever noticed that these “time for a change” types just magically vanish at state elections?Posted by benson swears a lot on 2007 04 30 at 06:33 AM • permalink
- Hmm. Seems to me that the reason we have the night lit up is to deter street crime. What’s the carbon footprint of one of them Orwell camera/loudspeaker deals in London? What are the coppers gonna do when the muggers and vandals and gang-rapists ignore the loudspeaker?
Speaker: “You there, breaking windows. Stop it. Stop it right now. On yer way before I chastise you in a more severe tone.”
Crook: “F*ck right off, copper.”
Speaker: “We’ll have you in for sensitivity training for that.”
Crook: “I can do yer seminars standing on my head.”
Speaker: “Hmm. I’m sure we’ve got a minority for that. Damn. Well, don’t take anything more than your inner child requires.”
Crook: “Sure thing.”
- #37 wronwright
We, the scalawags of the VRWC, as much as we are allowed independent thought, also believe something must be done. Perhaps you wish us to apply some kind of Pre Arranged Coercive Overpowerment to some lazy leftists in the hope that they might be ‘persuaded’ to spring into action? We await your orders.
- …Obama was asked what he personally was doing to save the environment, and replied that his family was “working on” changing their light bulbs.
Hey, the Obamas and the Rudds should have a working bee. Asked if he and his multi-millionaire wife personally used solar panels, Kevnisaid no, because of…
…problems with the location of the house…it is on the wrong side of the hill and it doesn’t have enough exposure to the sun because of its directional configuration.
- #7. No need to go manual! Your sex life can remain automated with reusable, rechargeable batteries! Yes yes my son, recharge the little critters and while away your pleasure-filled – er, well you know where you want it so you just do that thang – hours secure in the knowledge that Mother Gaia and her Little Rechargeable Elves are helping You do it right for YOU!
(Euphemisms available by request and mail-order).
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 04 30 at 07:10 AM • permalink
- I’ve got klieg lights lining the fence and burning enough electricity per minute to power several third world nations. The front yard is filled with fountains and water features, the back yard is being made ready for a hunting party – endangered species only, of course. And in the midst of all this I’m mobbed by nubile young ladies. They’re driven to unearthly degrees of desire by my industrial strength cologne which is, undoubtedly, destined to munch an untidy hole through the ozone layer.
‘Something should be done’?
I agree.
Something is being done.
Fuck you, Sunrise.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 04 30 at 07:33 AM • permalink
- #24 kae, no problem – happens all the time.
“Residents are asked to go without one light they’d otherwise have on.”
What a complicated process deciding which lights I leave on, which ones I turn off, and which extra light I now have to turn off. When I turn the light off I leave the room, rendering the light one which I would turn off anyway. So then I need to find another light and eventually I end up outside. But outside the pesky movement sensor keeps kicking in unless I stand motionless. And now the neighbours hustle their children away whenever they see me.
- Rudd’s struggling to answer questions on the 7:30 Report.
“I am not going to be Prime Minister of this country and appoint trade union officials or former trade union officials to the official body that will be overseeing industrial relations.” (paraphrased, somewhat badly)
I smell bullshit.
Posted by Ash
——————-
No, they will be appointed after due and proper process.
Posted by boxofmatches on 2007 04 30 at 07:50 AM • permalink
- Mandingo Obama Screws It Up.
Oh, sorry. Wrong thread.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 04 30 at 08:01 AM • permalink
- #7: Think Global – Act Loco
The very motto of climate hysteria. Brilliant, IT!
I, for one, AM doing something about reducing one man’s damage to the environment. This past weekend, I decided to leave the gas-powered mower in the garage and cut my grass using hedge clippers. Unfortunately, after five minutes of back pain, green knees and fire ants, it was apparent that I’d have to resort to the lawn mower, after all. So I vowed not to build a coal-fired asbestos plant in India, instead. And in order to justify using my chain saw to remove some brush, I also vowed that the coal-fired asbestos plant in India that I had decided not to build would not have run-off pipes emptying into the Ganges. It’s so easy when you know how to play!
- #43 under the whip –
Uh, well, what I meant is SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE by someone else. I’m too lazy to even order the scalawags to shake up the leftists to doing something.
In lieu of action, I’ve allocated all my time to decorating my back yard in Christmas lights and Japanese lanterns. Ordinarily I’d worry about the huge Al Gore-like electricity bills, except for the fact that I had MarkL access the utility company’s billing computer so that my account gets the local Greenpeace office’s meter reading and they get mine. I must say my bills keep getting smaller and smaller.
Of course, if you’re looking for brownie points to show your minion-supervisor in a futile attempt to move up to rogue level, you might want to take the Batman spotlight in the utility shed and shine it every night this week with the caption TURN OFF YOUR LIGHTS, STOP WANTON LIGHT USAGE !
Posted by wronwright on 2007 04 30 at 08:13 AM • permalink
- “Residents are asked to go without one light they’d otherwise have on.”
I planned to have 20 lights burning all night but didn’t. So where the hell are my carbon credits?
This is like those EU agricultural subsidy
schemesscams where they pay farmers not to raise pigs or grow crops.Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 04 30 at 08:33 AM • permalink
- #53 wronwright
My scalawag colleagues report from the utility shed and wish to advise that the only Batlight-caption to have survived the great fire is the stencil ‘of which we shall not speak’. (You know, the one we got from Hallibur…oops!) In the absence of further orders we will resume training drills.
- Unfortunately, I had to do my part this weekend, but like wronwright, mine was driven more by laziness than anything else. While celebrating in my backyard for my birthday, the sun eventually went down. I’d been too lazy to drag out lights and extension cords, so I resorted to firing up some old tiki torches I had in the garage. I did manage to fill them with a lovely petroleum based citronella fuel and since I’d been drinking cold HB’s all day I only spilled half of the fuel on the ground.
- Irresponsible ogres all of you. I, for one, cover my carbon tracks. Thank you Instapundit:
- andy—Might want to go easy on the “Mandingo” cracks. First off, by Democratic Party standards, Obama isn’t “really” black (unless polling says he should be) and second, it will send the lefty prisses into moral-superiority hissy fits.Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 04 30 at 09:44 AM • permalink
- Hmmm… “prisserie?” “Prissoisie?”Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 04 30 at 09:47 AM • permalink
#
Is this the new version of the old joke? How many senators does it take to “work on” changing a light bulb?
We already know the answer. All together now:
THAT’S NOT FUNNY!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 04 30 at 09:50 AM • permalink
- Last year I planted three trees in Mongolia. They are still alive and if I can figure out how I’ll send a photo.
I’ve done my bit! Up to the rest of youse now.
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 04 30 at 09:52 AM • permalink
- #58 Texas Bob
Happy (Belated) Birthday to you!
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2007 04 30 at 10:21 AM • permalink
- Don’t you get hair between your teeth like that?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 04 30 at 10:43 AM • permalink
- #66 Texas Bob
Surefire cures for hangovers don’t work – so I sympathise with you and you’ll be fine once all the grog is processed through your poor liver
But I’m glad you had a great time!
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2007 04 30 at 11:03 AM • permalink
Sen. Barack Obama was asked what he personally was doing to save the environment, and replied that his family was “working on” changing their light bulbs.
I had never heard of CFLs until I saw them once while at Home Depot. The package said that a CFL bulb lasted longer and that a 60-watt bulb used 14 watts of electricity. I bought enough for the house right there because it seemed like a smart way to save money.
So, my RWDB financial sense trumps Obama’s great concern for the Earth. My concern for a couple bucks a month did more for the environment than Obama’s belief that action is required or we’re all doomed. Pretty much a micro example of a macro truth – that free-market right-wing capitalism does more good than leftard bloviating.
- “Companies taking part need to switch off any non-essential lights when they finish work on [the first Wednesday of the month]. Residents are asked to go without one light they’d otherwise have on.”
I was in the habit of turning off unneeded lights every night, so just doing it once a month will be easier!
The first Wednesday of the month is when I trim my toenails, and I usually just have the one light on when I do. I’m not sure what will happen if I turn it off.
- How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb?
About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour—unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn’t include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.
Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter’s bedroom: It dropped and shattered on the carpeted floor.
Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
(It goes downhill from there…)
Sir Nicholas said it was not for him to prescribe ways of life. “What we are talking about here is government policy. Governments have to set right frameworks in discussion with people and industry and so on,” he said.
The modern left equivalent to “hey mon, ees not my yob”.
Face it, envirocrazies, we in the West are too spoiled by the good life to even consider giving it up and our elites are too, well, elite to lead the way. And the third world is too poor and too eager to attain the good life to follow. Oh well.
Jaime Castillo has a bead on Agore’s no media rule at his appearances: Gore doesn’t want message to architects to be widely heard
Gore, however, will graciously hawk signed copies of his book to AIA convention-goers during his few hours in San Antonio.
As for the rest of us non-architects who want to hear Gore’s thoughts on environmentalism and the future, you have to buy his book, pay to watch his movie or be part of a group that foots the bill for his hefty honorarium.
A skeptical person might think it sounds like a not-so inconvenient way to maximize profits.
Ya think?!
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 04 30 at 12:13 PM • permalink
- LOL, mojo.
Cost of Brandy Bridges’ caustic cleanup: $2,004.28
Value of Brandy Bridges’ cautionary tale: Priceless
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 04 30 at 12:21 PM • permalink
- Good link, mojo.Posted by andycanuck on 2007 04 30 at 12:32 PM • permalink
- I also helped Gaia by not turning on my lights until I got back home from the birthday blowout we had over at my middle daughter’s house. There are two birthdays in one week, on the 23rd (granddaughter was 4) and 27th (daughter was 31), and we partied like it was 2099!
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperHappy Belated Birthday, Texas Bob!
Posted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 04 30 at 01:01 PM • permalink
- Well, “What Is To Be Done?” has been answered at least once.
Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 04 30 at 02:34 PM • permalink
- And from 26 Apr, Today’s Magic Word.
Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 04 30 at 02:36 PM • permalink
- mojo—just bag ‘em up and toss ‘em over the side. They’ll float ashore. You hardly even need to slow down…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 04 30 at 09:05 PM • permalink
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