Greenspace

Earth Hour 2009

Earth Hour is set for Saturday March 28 at 8:30 p.m.
Cities across Canada and around the world will turn off their lights for an hour to raise awareness about climate change. What will you be doing in Hamilton?

Are we doing enough to promote cycling?

It should be easier to cycle around Hamilton than it is. In the Citizen Journalism section of the site, cycling advocates complain about pot holes, having to dodge cars and a full spectrum of dangers. What should be done?

Author challenges global warming claims

A book by Lawrence Solomon suggests that it's OK to have some doubt about some of the scientific "fact" surrounding global warming. The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, And Fraud (And Those Who Are Too Fearful To Do So) finds fault with the reasoning in the bigger examples used to prove that temperatures are rising. Click here to read the book reiew. What do you think?

Reflections on what Earth Hour meant

By A.Dziuba,  a grade six student at Sir Wilfrid Laurier

    My family, along with many others, participated in Earth Hour this year by turning off our lights, computers and TV’s. But more has to be done. Sure, it makes a difference, but what about the other 8759 hours when everyone completely forgets about this one single hour where they simply turned off their lights?
   In my household, my family managed to turn off a variety of things including our air cleaners, our fireplace, and our dryer. A couple things we could unplug next time are our cable box and other electronics.  We could use battery-operated flashlights and radios very carefully so that batteries aren’t wasted.
   There are many things we can change at our school to be more environmentally friendly. Kids should bring their juice boxes home because we can’t recycle them at school. This is better than just throwing them out. Our school should also try to get a composting system. We could try to shut off every second light to save energy.
   To help save the Earth, I think the city should make a law that if you are caught throwing out something recyclable in a place where you can find a recycling can, you should be fined a small fine.  People will do the right thing if it’s hard to do the wrong thing.
   This year we celebrated Earth Hour. Hopefully next year, we will celebrate Earth Year.   

By Emma, Grade 5 Student at Sir Wilfrid Laurier

The earth is a very precious thing to humans, and all other living things. But have we taken our precious plant for granted? Is this the reason that Earth Hour is so important? It is really important that we get the message that if we keep living this way in 20 to 40 years down the road or sooner we will be living on a polluted earth with gross waters, a gray sky, acid rain, and unbreathable air, which are only a few of the many consequences if we keep this up.  It may sound like I’m over exaggerating, but I’m not. This all sounds horrible right …….. to make sure this does not happen go green! Some of the things we can do to go green are:

1.    Buy green bags at your supermarket instead of using plastic bags. The cost of a $0.99 bag is nowhere near the cost of losing our planet.
2.    Turn off lights and open up the blinds every once in awhile. It’s healthier for the environment and your wallet.
3.    Hand wash your dishes every once in awhile. Do you know how much energy dishwashers use?

Look at that, already three great ways to go green!

By Emina, Grade 5 Student at Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Leaving your lights on once in a while is pretty common for most Canadians, but did you ever stopped to think about the effect it could have? Leaving your lights on once in a while or so may not have a big effect on the environment but it may not have a small effect either. Earth hour is an international event that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and electrical appliances for one hour on the evening of March 29 at 8:00pm local time until 9:00pm to promote electricity conservation and thus lower carbon emissions. Many schools participated in earth hour and turned off their lights and electrical appliances for one hour. Sir Wilfrid Laurier is one of the many schools that participated in earth hour. They turned off all their lights and electrical appliances from 11:00am to 12:00pm on March 28, all thanks to Patricia Jong and Kelly Lickman for making it possible for Sir Wilfrid Laurier to participate in earth hour. The purpose of earth hour is to conserve energy and to get us thinking about how our actions effect the environment and what we can do to help. ”I think it’s really great that Sir Wilfrid Laurier participated in earth hour”, says fellow Laurier student Arin Leffler. This year earth hour was a big success, thanks to everybody that participated, but remember earth hour comes once a year and having your lights off for one hour is great but we can always do better so please remember to turn off the television when you are not watching and to turn off the lights when you’re not home and remember to do this on a regular basis. Once again thanks to everyone for doing their part in helping the environment, thank you for all your hard work and participation without you we couldn’t have made earth hour possible.

Welcome to Greenspace

The Greenspace website launch is timed to coincide with Earth Day activities in Hamilton, and it will be active through the year. The Greenspace blog is a meeting place for discussion on issues throughout the world, with a focus on local initiatives.

With every post, we will invite comments on a central theme. So, let's get started.

Do you think Earth Day and Earth Hour should merge in their messaging? Is there a risk that the public will be confused by the two events?

Earth Hour 'out to lunch'

We received an interesting comment on the Earth Hour email.

Have a read and comment below.

Earth Hour is set to happen March 29 2008 from 8-9pm. I have known about it for months and thought it was a fantastic idea as it shows people are being educated about global warming and that something is needed to be done to combat it. However the concept is right out to lunch as it shows no one has been properly educated about what efforts are needed to reduce, and what everyone’s role is in CO2 emissions.
Seeing how literally everyone this week is jumping on the Earth Hour bandwagon, this is my last attempt to educate the lost souls.

First lets think of the concept. A massive surge of power (such as that caused by millions of people turning off then simultaneously on their
power) has the potential to blow transformers. No transformers, no power, for weeks until they get fixed. The blackout of 2003 should serve as a reminder, it was caused by a power plant transformer popping in the States. Since the power grid is interconnected from cities to provinces to North America, this could be a seriously problem. Not wanting to spend money to stock up on flash lights, candles and propane I got in touch with people in the know at OPG (Ontario Power Generation). They informed me OPG is 100% behind the efforts for Earth Hour and encourages employees participation (which is good to know that the power company isn't greedy, telling people no don't do this, consume more power so we make more money). They also informed me that there's two levels of power: base level and variable. Base level is supplied by the nuclear plants in Pickering and Bruce. These are always on and cannot be played with much. When there is a reduction in energy consumption, the variable power is the first to get shut off. First its the wind farms running from Port Colborne to Port Dover and in Shelburne (theres others, those are just the ones Im aware of). Then its the turbines in Niagra Falls, and then the coal plant in Nanticoke.
Obviously, green energy like wind and water have no CO2 emissions.

The general public is obviously largely unaware of where CO2 comes from. Emissions from cars account for about 15-20%. Energy is around the 15% mark (more for developing countries that rely more heavily on coal). Industry takes up the remainder. These include oil refineries, producers of aluminum, steel, plastics, chemicals, any kind of material. CO2 is also not the only green house gas, there are numerous:
SO2, CH4, SF6, CFC's, PFC's, even atmospheric water vapour absorbs radiation. These other compounds have a far greater effect towards global warming as they last hundreds or even tens of thousands of years longer the CO2 (which lasts around 200-300 years) and are much better at absorbing the suns radiation. Numbers specific, gases are given a value relating to its global warming potential (GWP). CO2 is the standard, having a value of 1. SF6 is the worst, having a GWP value of 23,500. In my opinion, these industry gases (along with CO2) dwarfs that caused by energy consumption.

The Canadian Federal government has already done something about the energy concern, passing a law on March 10th 2008 that as of 2012 no coal plants can be built on Canadian soil (with plans in the budget to replace the coal plant in Nanticoke with another nuclear plant), and by
2018 the oil refineries (Canada's biggest contributor to CO2) must incorporate carbon capture and storage (CCS). CCS is an issue on its own as the only industry plant to use it strictly for emissions reduction is in Norway and at a cost of $1.5 billion, it failed miserable. CCS involves stripping CO2 from atmospheric emissions and pumping it into either oceans or geological formations (earth’s natural
CO2 sinks). It is only a temporary fix as it will only contain the CO2 for a maximum of 300 years, and could have potential dire consequences by changing the pH of oceans or soil causing mass extinction of ocean wildlife and vegetation. This just goes to reinforce the general publics misunderstanding of the problem and what needs to be done to correct the problem as there are environmentalists actually fighting for industry to use CCS.

I for one will not be turning off my lights. Turning off your lights (in Ontario at least) will have a negligible effect on CO2, and in the rarest occurance, cause transformers to pop all over the grid (fortunately OPG tells me they are prepared for this and have automatic shutdowns to inhibit the chance). People will most likely be using candles as no one is going to sit in the dark for an hour, burning candles (burning anything) produces CO2. The problem is not industry, or the power companies but US. To more effectively handle the problem, we need to reduce our consumption of goods, having a 'no shopping day'
would do more towards reducing CO2. But to truly tackle the problem, we need to reduce all areas of energy, auto use and goods. They weren't joking when they drilled in your head in grade five to 'reduce, reuse, recycle'. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling people to no turn off their lights, but to consider that if you think you are combating global warming by doing so you are far from the truth.

-Noel Haynes

We can all make a difference!

The task of reducing global warming may sound very intimidating, but it's really the smaller things that usually end up making the biggest difference.  For example, when you go for your coffee at your local coffee shop, where do you toss your empty cup?  Do you recycle or do you throw it in with the regular trash?  When you dispose of your household garbage, do you take the time to consider either recycling or composting through the City's Green Cart program? As citizens of one of the most vibrant and beautiful cities in North America, we have an opportunity to play a major role in preventing our planet from going to waste.

My family and I now only have one bag of garbage each week. We do our best to dispose of everything in its proper place while trying to help divert unnecessary garbage from our landfill sites. As parents, we can teach our kids the importance of recycling and proper disposal of garbage. This way, they will become responsible citizens. We can use energy saving light bulbs in our homes to keep our electricity costs down, and whenever possible, we can leave our cars behind and ride public transit or even walk to work. Not only do we save energy and reduce pollution in the process, we also keep ourselves in good physical condition.

I would also like to commend our young people. Just recently, a young boy wrote to the City asking whether Hamilton would be participating in Earth Hour on March 29th; many school children and college students have been active while others have activities planned to commemorate Earth Day; students from McMaster University have been very active in spreading the message by writing articles for their school paper.  In addition, I offer kudos to Hamilton media outlets for playing a significant role in ensuring the Earth Day message goes out to all Hamiltonians.  I congratulate you for your efforts.

Some may wonder, what difference will can one day possible make, let alone one hour? We know that this single hour, Earth Hour, will remind us of our obligations and perhaps prompt us to continue with many more hours, days, and months ahead. Together, let us try to educate each and every person in our community about the importance of conservation, recycling, and protecting our environment.  Please join me and together we can do our part during  Earth Hour this Saturday, March 29th at 8:00 p.m.  Thank you.

Fred Eisenberger
Mayor of Hamilton

An hour is better than nothing

My name is Melissa Zazulak and I am a student at Laurier. Through participating in seminars presented by a Don in my building, I was told about Earth Hour that took place last year in Sydney Australia. I have always been avid about taking a more "Earth-friendly" role in the world, so hearing about Sydney last year felt like my calling. I think that it is an amazing idea, although it undergoes a lot of scrutiny. So, now that the light bulb had gone off in my head, I wondered what I could do. I set up a Facebook group, bringing the event to Laurier, and now it is a blown out event taking place on one of our limited fields. Many people ask me why it only goes on for an hour, and I keep telling them that we need to start small. An hour is better than nothing, and if people take anything away from this event, I hope it is simply knowledge. The knowledge of how to entertain themselves without power hungry machines to help them, or the knowledge of how we are hurting the earth.

By keeping something plugged in, although it may be turned off, still uses up electricity. I counted the number of things plugged into one of my residence rooms, and it was 20 things. Only 4 things were actually on, and they were two alarm clocks and the two computers.

This is the type of things so many people do not know. And it is the type of thing that is completely preventable, if people just knew about it.

As a Hamiltonian, and now a resident of Waterloo, I am thrilled to see such an interest in the idea. As a Canadian, I am glad to see so many of our major cities taking a role as well. As a student, it is wonderful to see such a learning opportunity from this. And lastly, as a North American, I am overwhelmed at the response to such a global cause that does not simply benefit our lavish lifestyles.

I am only one person. We are all "one persons" working together to make a difference.

What does Earth Hour mean to you?

Is there enough publicity?

I will certainly turn off as many electrical things as possible during that hour ... lights, TV, computer, etc. I sincerely hope that compliance is strong in this city, although I am concerned that not enough publicity has been put forward by the city to promote this event.

It is an important statement to collectively make and certainly could help promote awareness of the amount of electricity that is used for no real purpose.

Posted by: Brian Henley

Gone in 60 minutes

This event is like going to church for many people: devote an easy hour to something you "believe" in and then blithely return to behaving the same as always. Kind of sad. Our behaviors need to change 8760 hours a year (8784 this year), not only when there's a sensational choreographed event for us to partake in and feel good about.
Do everyone a real favour: leave the CFL lights on and spend the hour writing a list of what you can do to reduce your environmental footprint for the rest of the year. Then follow it. And, if you have time left, penning a letter or two demanding change to the politicians, unions and business people resisting it in the name of short term economies or votes wouldn't hurt either.
(P.S. Do the concerns that more power than usual will need to be produced to handle the surge at the end of this event have merit?)

Posted by: Just A Thought

Is Paris burning (the lights)?

I'll switch of my lights but there is no event in Paris...Such a shame!!! :(

Posted by: Citizen_Tom

One small step for a woman ...

My neighbour and I are holding a block party at my place for the folks on Desjardins Court in Westdale Hamilton. I am dropping off invitations and hoping that many of my neighbours will turn off their lights (power bars too) and join together for candlelight conversation and community building. Turning off the lights for one hour is a small gesture but it may be the beginning of acknowledging our impact on this planet.

Posted by: Janie van Essen

Sparks will fly?

Just A Thought asked a question; "Do the concerns that more power than usual will need to be produced to handle the surge at the end of this event have merit?"

There are ways to demonstrate the surge with electricity in the home but sparks would fly and it would be dangerous. Therefore a similar demonstration can be accomplished with water instead.

Get in your bath tub and fill it to the overflow and be still. Now make some waves and notice how some of the water spills into the overflow, this is how a normally functioning grid handles light disturbances.

Now get out of the tub as quickly as possible. Notice how the water becomes agitated and then settles down well below the overflow. You have now switched off. To demonstrate the affects of everyone switching back on at the same time, just do a cannonball back into the tub and record your observations.

Hope That Helps.