Energy use dimmed during Earth Hour

Following up article about the Earth Hour event.

Energy authorities say the impact of last night's Earth Hour event was the equivalent of two large power stations being temporarily shut down.

National landmarks like the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne's Federation Square were dimmed, as lights were switched-off across the country to help combat global warming.

Paul Bird from the National Electricity Market Management Company says it prompted a sizeable drop in demand for power.

"We're still finalising the data, but we do believe that there was at least 1,000 megawatts reduction across the national grid, which is a significant reduction across the states, south-eastern and eastern states of Australia," he said.

Earth Hour encouraged people to turn-off lights and electrical appliances for an hour, to help combat climate warming.

Mr Bird says demand dropped during the hour, but then rose again.

"There was a significant energy reduction, not only in the capital cities, we also detected it across regional centres as well,'' he said.

Also read this: Lights out: Earth Hour goes global

We participated last night, we turn off all lights and unplug unnecessary electricity for an hour then out for dinner.

If we all stick together, we can make a CHANGE!

A movement that spans the world

FELLOW electricians Justin McInerney and Tony Bautista have never met, and probably never will, but the pair are playing their part in Earth Hour tonight.

Eighteen hours apart and on opposite sides of the world they will throw the levers that turn off the lights above their cities' great bridges, as the event sweeps through 35 nations at eight o'clock local time tonight.

In San Francisco, Mr Bautista will turn off the lights above the Bay Bridge, the busiest in the US. It will signal the 60-minute shutdown across the city, from the Golden Gate Bridge, to City Hall and at least 70 buildings in San Francisco's financial district, as well as other tourism landmarks.

In Sydney, the darkened Harbour Bridge will be joined by the Opera House, dozens of city skyscrapers and hundreds of thousands of homes.

Mr McInerney said he was proud to flick the switch that dims the bridge's non-essential lights.

Earth Hour will bring millions of people around Australia and the world together to make a statement about climate change when they turn out their lights from 8pm to 9pm.

From Brighton Pier in England to England to the Tivoli amusement park in Copenhagen, politicians, business people, celebrities, communities, families and individuals have signed up to what is becoming a world movement. In 10 countries, 26 cities have registered as official partners.

In Chicago, the Sears Tower will turn off its lights while in downtown St Louis, the Mayor, Francis Slay, has proposed hosting a candlelit dinner at J.Bucks restaurant to mark the night.

The Grammy award winner Nelly Furtado will perform at an unplugged concert in Toronto. Up to 10,000 are expected to attend.

In Sydney, the Premier, Morris Iemma, will take part in an official Earth Hour event at Mrs Macquaries Chair, where he will be joined by the federal Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, the federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, the federal Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, and the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore.

At Sydney Theatre Company, the curtain will go up at 6.30pm, an hour and a half early, for the opening night of The Year Of Magical Thinking so director Cate Blanchett can deliver on a commitment to Earth Hour at 8pm.

Around the country, hundreds of businesses and agencies are joining the event. The Australian Federal Police, for one, will be switching off its lights, computers and electronic equipment - but will maintain essential policing.

Earth Hour began in Sydney last year after a brainstorming session at World Wide Fund for Nature's regional headquarters. It is supported by Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald.

The WWF hopes the symbolic event will send a signal to next year's United Nations meeting in Copenhagen, where it is hoped a new global climate change agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions will be signed.

Quote of the Day

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine.

David Ogilvy
Confession of an Advertising Man

Earth Hour

Earth Hour is an international event that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening of March 29th at 8PM local time to promote electricity conservation and thus lower carbon emissions.

It is promoted by World Wide Fund for Nature Australia (WWF), an environmental lobby group, and the Sydney Morning Herald. The first Earth Hour was held in Sydney, Australia between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on 31 March 2007. The 2007 Earth Hour is estimated to have cut Sydney's mains electricity consumption by between 2.1% and 10.2% for that hour, with as many as 2.2 million people taking part. A second Earth Hour, in 2008, is planned to be an international event held in Sydney, many partner cities, and individuals around the world participating.

Origins
Earth Hour, under the working title 'the big flick', was conceived by members of WWF-Australia's communication team in December 2005 as a possible campaign to engage all parts of the Australian community on the need to address climate change.

A partnership was formed in August 2006 between WWF-Australia's Andy Ridley, Leo Burnett's Nigel Marsh and Fairfax Media's Phil McLean with a planned campaign date of early 2007. Earth Hour was launched publicly as a Sydney-only event on December 16 2006 by Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and took place at 7.30pm on March 31 2007.

Following significant interest from both inside Australia and around the world, Earth Hour was formed into a non-profit entity owned by WWF-Australia, Leo Burnett and Fairfax Media. The decision was taken to make Earth Hour an open source model, allowing any genuinely interested individual, company, media or government anywhere in the world to adopt the campaign for 2008.

Earth Hour 2007
The 2007 Earth Hour was part of a wider awareness campaign that aimed to reduce Sydney's carbon emissions by 5%. 68,506 individuals and 2,270 businesses registered their intention to participate on the Earth Hour website. Energy Australia, a utility, attributed a 10.2% decrease in consumption during the hour to the campaign. A poll of about 1000 people conducted afterwards suggested that 57% of Sydneysiders participated – some 2.2 million people.

Earth Hour 2008
Strong backing from the City of Sydney and its Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, helped to make Earth Hour 2008 an international event.

As of 24 March, over 11,900 businesses and 188,000 individuals had indicated their intention to participate at www.earthhour.org

Earth Hour 2008 will include the following "partner cities"

Asia and the Pacific

• Lautoka, Fiji
• Suva, Fiji
• Adelaide, Australia
• Brisbane, Australia
• Canberra, Australia
• Melbourne, Australia
• Perth, Australia
• Sydney, Australia
• Christchurch, New Zealand
• Bangkok, Thailand
• Manila, Philippines
• Dubai, UAE
• Tel Aviv, Israel

Europe

• Århus, Denmark
• Aalborg, Denmark
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Odense, Denmark
• Timişoara, Romania
• Exeter, England
• Dublin, Ireland

North America

• Atlanta, United States
• Saginaw, United States
• Chicago, United States
• Miami, United States
• Phoenix, United States
• San Francisco, United States
• Halifax, Canada
• Montreal, Canada
• Ottawa, Canada
• St. John's, Canada
• Toronto, Canada
• Vancouver, Canada
• Edmonton, Canada

Prior to 2008, San Francisco had been running a Lights Out program of their own that occurred in October. For 2008 it was being moved to March 29th to align with Australia's Earth Hour. This also happen to be the year that Earth Hour became an international event and San Francisco was asked to be a partner city in Earth Hour. Rather than have a competing event, San Francisco is supporting Earth Hour and all Lights Out efforts will now move to supporting the international Earth Hour event.

Indonesia, let's be part of this!

SJP is "Unsexiest" Woman

"Am I really the unsexiest woman in the world?"

That's the rhetorical question actress Sarah Jessica Parker posed to Grazia (which actually bills itself as Britain's "first glossy magazine"). She was responding to the title of "Unsexiest Woman Alive" bestowed upon her by a poll of the readers of another magazine, Maxim.

In questioning their choice, Ms. Parker fails to notice that she's acquiescing to the notion that there really is an unsexiest woman in the world. But she deserves credit for bravely admitting that it caused her significant pain, enhanced, in turn, by her husband's anger.

"Do I fit some ideals and standards of some men writing in a men's magazine?" she asked. "Maybe not." (Plaudits also for taking the trouble to Q & A herself, thus lightening the interviewer's work load.)

Again, Ms. Parker is on the right track, but only halfway there. She herself illustrated the point in the 1991 film LA Story. Playing SanDeE*, a dizzy, flirtatious young woman, she beguiles the middle-aged Steve Martin. (And, in the process, makes it impossible for girls to ever unselfconsciously twirl again.)

By parodying it in its most juvenile and blatant form to a T, Ms. Parker draped herself with the mantle of sexiness and the rest was history. It's indicative of her intelligence that her career was built on irony.

Maxim's readers likely weren't singling her out for a lack of sexiness, which no red-blooded man can dispute at this point. Arguably, it's her long face to which they object.

In fact, Ms. Parker is the latest in a long line of formidable women stretching from Cleopatra to Bette Davis to Madonna. Though lacking the symmetry of a classic beauty, they bent men -- and the world -- to their whims, whether by disposition, determination, or talent.

The case can be made that Maxim's readers object to having a sex symbol chosen for them on the basis of her success in a "women's" TV series. Also, there's no disputing that La Parker is ubiquitous -- besides TV, from billboards to magazine ads to commercials -- not to mention, much the richer for it.

But, as is too often the case with a poll, it reveals more about the voters than the subject. First, Maxim readers seem oblivious to the extent to which their tastes in women have been shaped by today's surgically enhanced models and actresses. Talk about an image being forced down their throats.

Second, conferring a title as vicious as unsexiest woman alive on anyone reflects a poverty of spirit that, in itself, cancels out a Maxim reader's qualifications to choose the winner of any poll.

Except for maybe which male mixed-martial-art star they'd most like to be in the ring with alone and naked.

So, the questions for female bloggers out there:
1) If you were SJP, how would react being awarded as "Unsexiest" woman?
2) What is more important, consider as "sexy" or "smart"?
3) Or, would you love to have it both? Sexy and smart.

Culture East Vs West

Understanding of Chinese/Asian culture vs. Western.........interesting research.

It also applies to all Asians, including the Indians, Japanese, Thais, Koreans, Indonesian, Malays, Dayaks, etc.

These icons were designed by Liu Young who was born in China and educated in Germany.
Blue --> Westerner
Red --> Asian/Chinese

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