Firstly, if a significant number of people (by significant I mean in the millions) turn off all electrical devices for an hour then it should show up on Gridwatch.
Secondly, if the plan is to turn off electricity and use candles for lighting instead, is this really environmentally friendly? As far as I can tell burning gas to provide electricity for lighting is far more efficient than burning hydrocarbons and string. I have no reference to prove this but the smoky carbon laden fumes from a candle can't be that "green".
I'm all for protecting the environment but I'm probably a bit too logical at times.
Carbon isn't bad, it's just that there is too much of it.
The planet has been storing the excess in the form of hydrocarbons.
The human portion of the planet has figured out how to liberate all that stored carbon and has proceded to do so like theres no tomorrow. Which of course there wont be for many coastal communities.
Best option is to burn no hydrocarbons at all and use direct sunlight for warmth, cooking etc.
Worst option is to burn hydrocarbons, any really, gas, coal, oil.
Practically we have to arrive at a medium that we feel comfortable with.
Then Trump will declare it's all garbage and give his oil companies tax breaks, increase production and the rest of the world will think why should we suffer while Americans bask in warmth or cold depending what switch they throw.
Fortunately it hasn't happened so far, but I have little doubt more will join Trumps little bandwagon given the right circumstances
Your candle may look like a nasty horrible end to civilisation, but the main reason for lighting it is to get the planets problems into focus. People will remember the candlelit session long after global warming has given way to rabies or some celebrities boob size in the tabloids.
Candlelight is nice, I remember when power was erratic and candles or a Tilley were a frequent source of light in the evenings.
The atmos was nice, it could pong a bit, but there was an air of warmth and togetherness that the incadescent never replaced.
If they only turn off room lights and continue with CH and TV it might not make much difference. There is a lot of base load.
If it is a beeswax candle then it is sort of greenish. You get about
100W of heat out and 4W of useful light if you are lucky. It can be easily outclassed by a modern LED lamp.
I had a try at stacked TECs over a candle flame to demonstrate just how much waste heat there was, but it was too dangerous to use as a lecture demonstration - the hot side got close to melting solder and the cold side needed dry ice on it to play at all. Mad scientist stuff.
I'd have been more in favour of it last weekend when it was close to a new moon and the decrease in light pollution would have been beneficial. (just back from running a spring stargazing event with clear skies)
With the moon in the sky no chance of seeing a difference if a few people switch off their domestic lights for Earth day.
It made quite a difference when they did this on the Canary Isles for the Great Apagon (lights out) a long time ago now.
The 'globe' has been warming ever since the end of the so-called 'little ice age' (somewhere around 1750 - 1800 depending on who you read and how 'end' is defined), sometimes a bit faster, sometimes a bit slower. From 1975 - 2000 it was a bit faster. Since about 2000 it has paused (El Nino 2015-2016 notwithstanding). A detailed analysis of the global temperature data and its proxies going back thousands of years (tree rings etc, but mainly arctic and antartic ice cores) reveals several regular oscillations of different frequencies. These oscillations coincide in time with the conjunction of the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, and their gravitational influence on the Sun, in much the same way as the moon and sun operate together to cause variations in our sea tides, from spring to neap.
Other oscillations can be traced in the variation in 14C and 10Be, caused by bombardment of the earth's atmosphere by cosmic rays, due in part to variations in the solar output (see above) and in part to the position of our solar system as it drifts through our galaxy, the Milky Way, circulating around the supermassive black hole at its centre. Such variation in cosmic ray bombardment will cause variation in cloud nucleation in our atmosphere, and hence the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface.
These factors result in a much better empirical fit to the global temperature data than does atmospheric CO2. From the planetary cycles it is predicted that global temperatures won't rise much for the next thirty years, and that's certainly been the case for the last twenty.
CO2 does not correlate with global temperatures back through the millennia. There is evidence that global temperature increases predate rises in CO2, suggesting the earth's surface is outgassing as the temperature rises. But of course that doesn't rule out the possibility of the reverse effect, that CO2 in its turn causes an increase in CO2.
The equations used to predict the effect of CO2 on global temperature are complex and contain variables that are not easy to measure with accuracy, with the not-unexpected result that the predicted temperatures are rather different to those observed. It is very likely that CO2 plays only a minor role in controlling global temperatures. It is difficult to understand why CO2 has been singled out compared to, for example, water vapour, which is on average some ten times the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and also absorbs in the infra-red.
To paraphrase Bill Clinton: 'It's the Sun, stupid!'.
However, I would agree with you that fossil fuels are a finite resource, and will eventually run out. They have many applications other than simply burning them to provide energy, that we would be poorer without. We should use them frugally. But renewables are unreliable and will only ever make a small contribution to our energy needs. Nuclear power, whether fission using uranium/plutonium, or thorium, or fusion in a Tokamak or similar, is the way to go for future sources of energy.
ICBA to put up a load of references, but if you want to explore this further, look up my earlier posts here on this topic, or do a google-scholar search for articles by Scafetta for planetary influences on the Sun, and Svensmark for the effects of cosmic rays.
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