Calgary gives middle finger to Earth Hour

Saturday evening was Earth Hour (I’ll admit now that I knew it was coming but didn’t realize until Sunday when it was), and saw many people across Earth turning off their lights from 8-9pm local time.  Many Canadian cities saw drops of up to 9% consumption, and some smaller towns went completely dark!

However, in the heart of fossil-fuel burning Alberta, Calgary saw an increase in power consumption:

Calgary is the only known city in Canada where energy consumption actually went up during Earth Hour, a trend organizers pinned on colder weather and a late start locally in promoting the global event.

The “late start” I think refers to people not being organized in Calgary, unless people only started turning off around 8:30 or 8:45 and had only a little time.  One other reason given is that there was a Flames vs. Oilers game (Oilers won 2-1) that evening as well.

This is the province in which I live, it’s pretty sad.

Gambling on Global Warming

A video to explain the cost-benefit analysis of the controversy, sit through the entirety to get the point.

Climate Change? Yes

The BBC posted the top 10 sceptical responses to climate change (i.e. people trying to debunk the idea), and the scientific and critical responses to them.  A very enlightening read.  This is in response to the IPCC’s soon to be released 2007 report.

Quick summary: climate change is happening, and it is very likely our fault.  What are you going to do?

Tell the Alberta Gov’t what to do

The provincial government is taking a survey on their budget, asking the public how they’d spend money essentially.  You can take the survey here, hopefully we can get some important issues into their thick conservative skulls.

Heat Wave

It’s been over 30C here for the last few days, and looks to stay that way for another 5 or more (does this demonstrate global warming at all?). My apartment doesn’t really get below the mid 20s at night, which makes it really uncomfortable to try to sleep. I’d say the plus is I get more time to read The God Delusion, but I’m so hot and tired that I can barely concentrate on the book.

Air-conditioning in my new condo will be nice (although conscience wise I’ll only use it in times like this when I need it to sleep), but I have no clue when that will be ready.

As for now I’ll try a cold shower and laying myself down for a few hours until morning.

Global warming is still real

Hey remember that film Al Gore made a year ago? Well I actually never saw it, but I have looked into actual studies and the science (of which there isn’t as much discord as some may have you believe). The key point to remember is that global warming is happening, and its most likely our own damn fault.

So what should we do? Not driving Hummers (or any large vehicle for that matter), or just driving less in general is a good start. Turning lights, computers, and electronic devices off when not in use helps too. Also start promoting these ideas to family, coworkers, and friends.

No one is really expected to make mad dramatic shifts in their lifestyle (like giving up all forms of non-recyclable products), but many minor shifts made by many people can quickly add up.

The environment does matter, so lets do something about it.