Earth hour

Somebody I work for had a new footer to his email this a few weeks back, promoting Earth Hour which is the plan that everybody at 8:30pm turn off their lights for one hour to show their commitment to climate change.

Now in the past I might have thought OK cool, someone is doing something.  However to me this is epic fail (lower case for empasis), the fuel strikes back in 2001 were the same, the purpose was to not fill up or prevent those that could.  However shortly afterwards the balance just returned to normal.  It was a blip on history of time.

Also what about Live Aid back in 2005, what a waste of time.  People had a great time going to a concert and feeling good that they might be helping something, however did people really change?  No, there is still suffering in Africa.  5 years and the majority of the people that supported that effort are doing very little to help now.

Earth hour is the same sort of short term plan that within a week nobody will be talking about.  PLUS on the website it asks you to video, take picture and Twitter about it.  Excuse me but all that hardware is taking up more power than the low energy bulbs I am turning off.  Don't just think about your computer and camera, how about the servers that are running 24/7, the Internet routers all that is creating carbon emissions.

The problem is not awareness, everybody knows there is a problem (some deny we are the cause but that's different).

The problem is the lack of clean abundant energy.

There was a program on television a few years back.  A business man set a challenge that he could make anybody a millionaire within 2 years.  There was 2 stages to his plan which for the most part people fell at the second.

The first was to reduce outgoings, many people spend hundreds on takeaways or ready meals, leaving televisions on, throwing away things they no longer needed.  Practically all the people in the show were thousands better off over the course of the first 6 months by watching where their money was actually going.

The second part was to do something with the money saved, hire someone to be an employee in a new business venture.

The businessman's premise was that you could only go so far with reducing.  To truly move forward you needed to invest.  Earth Hour should be about asking everybody in the developed countries to hand over $100

A Jedi you are not

Just been crying with laughter at a clear moron:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/16/jobcentre_jedi/

I also consider the manager of the JobCentre a moron for apologising the man in question.

Basically he got kicked out of a JobCentre for not taking off his hoodie which he claimed that he was a Jedi and wearing a hood is part of his religion.

There are so many things wrong with that here are a few:

1, I know Jedi has been recognised as a religion (which I guess is ok) however the religion does not mandate the wearing of hoodies like in the case of Muslim women.

2, The guy was in a JobCentre, a place were people are trying to help you.  Do you really want to get on the wrong side of the people that are trying to help you?  That just proves his attitude stinks.

3, Jedi's are meant to be respectful and peace loving, his attitude is neither.

4, At the bottom of the article the reporter suggests that in future if any other Jedi's are ejected perhaps just a wave of their hand and the words "This is not the hoodie your looking for" would be enough.

Speculation in the media

I just stumbled across a talk my Michael Crichon (The famous author)

http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-whyspeculate.html

Its excellent.  Read it.  Not all the way as he does rant, you get the idea after about 10mins.