Stearinljusets miljöpåverkan

Earth Hour är på ingång, och Ikea i Kanada delar ut stearinljus till sina 4000 anställda för att de ska kunna släcka det elektriska ljuset i säkerhet under den timmen.

Physical Insights har dock gjort ett försök att räkna ut vad skifte till stearinljus egentligen innebär koldioxidmässigt:

Therefore, for every candle that is burned to replace electric lighting during Earth Hour, greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the one hour are increased by 9.6 g of carbon dioxide.
If the light output from a 40 W light bulb was to be completely replaced by candles, this will lead to the emission of an extra 295 grams of carbon dioxide per over simply using the electric lights - if the equivalent of one thousand 40 W bulbs are replaced by candles, that’s an extra 295 kilograms of emitted.

In places where a greater proportion of the electricity supply is generated by nuclear energy or hydroelectricity, this increase in greenhouse gas emissions is even larger.

Han sammanfattar även Earth Hour i inlägget:

Earth Hour should be about doing everything that you can to reasonably, sensibly limit your demand for electricity - and we can do this every hour of every day, of course. It makes sense for everyone - after all, you pay for the electricity.

I guess I have a problem with the idea that Earth Hour symbolises something.

It might symbolise something, but it doesn’t actually do anything.

The only thing it symbolises is primitive society.

(Via Ecogeek)