While Western civilisation has enjoyed the benefits of cheap, coal-fired electric power for barely more than a century, much of the Third World still struggles to cope with the capriciousness of an ever-challenging climate.
So what do fools do to celebrate? They turn off the lights.
May I suggest Earth Hour be more appropriately held on the first day of April.
John McRobert,
Brisbane
The greatest of hoaxes must be called for what it is and fought on every front.
This is a power game where political power is taking precedence over access to the energy we need for survival.
The term ‘fossil fuels’ is misleading. Images of dwindling reserves of dead dinosaurs immediately come to mind. But coal is primarily derived from thin air as hundreds of millions of years of photosynthesis captured the energy of sunlight and deposited the accumulated energy into vast layers of a fuel which humans could never exhaust, and a battery storage which humans could never match. I once calculated the rate at which we mine coal in Australia can be compared to attempting to bail out Sydney Harbour with a bucket, and forgetting to block off the ocean at the Heads. We are finding coal faster than we mine it.
The relatively tiny amount of carbon dioxide we return to the atmosphere from which it came is quickly gobbled up by plant life – trees growing around Tarong Power Station grow over twice as fast as trees 20 km away.
The term ‘renewables’ is deliberate deception. The tools needed to harvest energy from the wind and the sun have to be renewed regularly, using energy supplied by carbon fuels.
It’s time for an education overhaul. The ‘Carbon Monster’ is still scaring children witless in the schools. This is mind manipulation of children at its worst.
CO2 is a trace gas: 0.o03% of the atmosphere (nitrogen 80 %, Oxygen 19.9% argon 09% the rest 0.01% trace gases
So what if it has increased to 0.004%
It is still a trace gas.
Plants utilise it to produce oxygen.
The solution if the world is alarmed is to plant more trees.
India and Indonesia have recognised this and are planting trees by the million.
John Walsh